chanelladia

[chanelladia]

Chapter 1: The Girl Who Admired the Stars

There was once a young girl who adored stars and wished she had the ability to reach up into the nighttime sky and grasp one for herself.

This adoration started when her mother told her a story about a prince who lived in the sky with the stars and was locked at the brightest star that any of us could see. Her mother stated that he had been locked up because he was accused of stealing the brightest star and exploiting it for evil purposes; hence, he was imprisoned there. However, after some time, the prince pleaded to be innocent, claiming that he was simply seeking to capture the brightest star because it was the only way for him to protect all of the kingdoms of the celestial world. The story then ended tragically since he was accused of such a crime before he could save them all.

Whenever the sun went down and the sky was clear, she would stand at the window in her bedroom and extend her hand out for as far as she could reach, but no matter how far she stretched or how near the stars appeared to be at the ends of her fingertips, she could never quite grasp them. Maybe if I was a little taller, she reasoned, I'd be able to grab one. Time passes so quickly, and eight years have gone by.

Many things have changed in her life, but her love and longing for the stars have not. The girl was always standing on the stool on her room's porch, yet even when she was, the stars danced far beyond her grasp. The girl slumped down, burying her face in her hands, and sobbed bitterly. Why can't she just reach for it? She waited eight long years to get taller, but she suspected it would still be inadequate.

She continued to cry till she heard a voice.

"What's the matter?" "Why are you crying?"

She heard a voice say something to her, and as she lifted her head, she noticed that whoever was speaking to her was the tree in front of her veranda.

"Oh, Mr. Tree," she exclaimed. "Can you assist me? I'd like to catch a star to keep for myself, but I'm not tall enough; could you reach up into the sky for me?"

The tree shuddered and rustled its branches as if wanting to help the girl.

"I'm sorry, little one," it said quietly, "but even at my enormous height, I can't reach into the sky; probably you could find where the constellations come from and go there to find one for your own."

The girl ceased crying and lifted her head at this point. The moonlight streamed down on her face, turning her weeping tears into little stars. She laughed.

"What an excellent idea! Do you have any idea where the stars come from?"

The tree squeaked, groaned, and pondered. It had become quite old and had seen a lot of things, but it couldn't remember ever knowing where the stars originated from.

"Everything I am able to inform you," it continued, "is that it appears to be in the nature of stars to move around in the heavens, with the exception of one."

It rustled its branches once more here, pointing to a dazzling light in the sky. "I am confident that following that star will lead you to answers to questions you are looking for."

" Many thanks, Mr. Tree!" the girl exclaimed joyfully as she put on her coat, shoes, and headed off towards the path of the enormous dazzling star.

~TBC~

[chanelladia]

Chapter 2: Sailing Away

She eventually arrived at the coast, where a ship was anchored awaiting passengers, after a long walk.

"Hey, little girl, are you proceeding to board?" one of the shipmen questioned.

"Yes! I'm trying to figure out where the night stars come from so I can go there and catch one for myself," the little girl answers as she walks up to the ship, taking a seat near the dock with a view of the big ocean in front of her.

"Psst! Little girl!" exclaimed the ocean, "I heard you conversing with the shipman earlier before boarding the ship, so you'd like to know where the stars come from?"

The young girl became ecstatic and interested, realizing that this could be her chance to find answers to her questions. "Yes, Oceana! Do you know where I might be able to find them? Could you help me?" she asked.

"That's simple then," the ocean replied, "they're right here in front of you. They glow in my face night after night, and I can't sleep solely due to how bright they are. Sing a song and toss a rock, and I'm certain that you'll catch one."

So the girl sung and swung the rocks she picked up from Mr. Tree's soil into the depths of the ocean, but she couldn't discover a single star.

"Oh, it's meaningless!" exclaimed her. "The stars aren't here at all!"

"Well, they were until you started tossing rocks so hard!" responded the ocean. "Perhaps you frightened them away."

The girl flopped and sighed heavily. Just then, two dolphins pushed their heads above the surface of the sea.

"Don't despair," they told her, "the stars aren't actually here; they're nothing but a reflection of the ocean's face."

The dolphins' words had made the girl displeased and disheartened.

"You see," the dolphin explained, "the Atlantic is a magnificent sapphire, an embodiment of nature of both beauty and tranquility; but you won't find the stars by singing and throwing stones at it."

The youthful girl nodded and wiped away her tears.

"Thank you so much, dolphins!"" she wailed, standing up and packing her belongings as she prepared to get off the ship.

~TBC~

[chanelladia]

Chapter 3: The Corals’ Tale

When the young girl headed back to the shore, she rested on the sand for a few minutes to consider where she may go next. A voice then interrupted her thoughts.

"You tell her you're the oldest and largest one here!"

"How dare you talk to our oldest sibling like that!"

"Hey, guys, stop fighting!"

"Haist, sisters... Hello, little girl! Down here!"

She looked downward and noticed four corals nearby. A big one, who she presumed was the eldest based on what she'd heard about the fight earlier. There's another coral that looks just like the other one—are they twins? Corals are capable of giving birth to twins! The last coral, the one who called upon her, was unlike the others; it was the smallest and had a peculiar hue, orange.

"You thought very loudly, little girl! So loud that you disturbed my beauty rest," said one of the twin corals.

"Oh, come on, even if she shuts her thoughts off, you still won't get your "beauty rest", you hideous coral!"

"We're twins! We look alike! Plus, you're the one who's unattracti-"

"EVERYONE, STOP!" The eldest exclaimed.

"So, my dear, you want to learn where those stars come from?" questioned the orange coral.

"Yes! I want to know where the stars reside so I can go there and acquire one for myself!" exclaimed the young girl.

"You desire to gain insight into where the stars live? Well, first you have to learn the tale of how the stars came to be," the oldest responded.

The Corals’ Tale

Several centuries ago far, far away, in a small seaside village, resided a young girl similar to yourself. She was used to her grandfather and dad going for several days at a time to hunt for fish, but this was back when only the sun and moon sailed through the skies, and on evenings when the moon was dark, there was not much light to see by and absolutely nothing to direct fishermen on their way home. It was a risky work, and every single time her father left, the girl begged him not to.

"Papa, it's dangerous!" she'd exclaim, "I'm terrified you aren't going to return home anymore."

Her father, on the contrary, consistently left her at home with her mother and went sailing. When there was no sign of the moon in the sky one evening, the father of the little girl prepared for his departure as usual, and she wept and pleaded with him not to leave.

"Papa, how will your vision be once you walk home? It will be pitch black."

"Do not fret, my love, everything will be fine; stay with your mother now and be a good girl," he said as he urged her towards her mother and strolled away with his father down the dock. The young lady was upset. Sobbing, she ran away from her mother's embrace and ran to the mountain top, where she was able to witness the sun setting. She screamed and whined and made a lot of noise.

When the sun heard the uproar, he questioned what was the problem.

"My papa and grandfather are going fishing at the ocean this evening, and there will be no light from the moon in the sky to accompany them; I'm afraid they'll get lost and never find the path home once more."

The sun paused for a while before launching one of his beams as hard as he could toward the sky's roof, shattering into billions of small fragments which engulfed the heavens and produced lovely glittering stars.

"There you go," the sun remarked, "they'll always have something to lead them home."

"And that's how the stars came to be." one of the twin corals explained.

"Look up, and you'll find out. We, corals, make use of it as an indicator that reveals us the way to areas in which we can have our beauty rest! Hopefully, if you follow it, you'll find what you're looking for," the other twin explained.

The corals then bid her farewell and buried themselves beneath the sand.

"Thank you!" the girl said, turning her gaze to the sky and beginning to trek along the path of the stars.

~TBC~

[chanelladia]

Chapter 4: The Cave Witch’s Tale

The girl walked and wandered for days and weeks, becoming lonely and wished she had a companion to talk to. When she was exhausted one night, she stopped in a cave to rest and wrapped her coat around her like a blanket. She was about to fall asleep when she noticed a woman approaching her through a canopy of trees and realized she had trespassed in its cavern. She fumbled to her feet, grabbing her coat tightly to her.

"Good evening, Miss. I apologize for being in your cave, but I happened to be tired and lonely. I should go on my way now."

The woman came to a halt and gazed at her.

"I'm a witch, but a good one, so don't be terrified of me and say, where may your way be, precisely, tiny one?" the witch inquired.

"I'm on a hunt for stars. I want to track them down and catch one to keep." the girl replied.

"Well," the witch remarked, "there's not much point in that. Sit down, and I'll explain why you'll never catch one."

The Cave Witch’s Tale

When the Supreme Spirit first created the universe, there were no ordinary individuals, only witches, in addition no night, only an endless day, and everybody lived in peace. However, the witches began to argue one day. No one exactly why, but they chanted and screamed and bickered and battled and made so much noise that the Supreme Spirit gradually noticed and wondered what was going on.

When he saw the witches fighting, he begged them to cease right away, but their battle was so loud that the witches were unable to hear him, so he took his large cloak and threw it over the world, and immediately darkness fell. The witches fell silent because they failed to fully comprehend what just happened. They started calling out, pleading to the Great Spirit, crying out for forgiveness, but they received no response. After much deliberation, the witches agreed that one of them should go and pull the blanket off.

The witches then used their most powerful spells in an attempt to lift the blanket.

"I'll go first," the coven-based witch suddenly says. "I can cast more powerful spells and am stronger than any of you."

The other witches laughed at the coven-based witch's arrogance and waited to see if she could actually get off that blanket.

The Coven-Based The witch used a spell to create a large and long hand; she thought she could swipe the blanket with one gigantic hand, but she couldn't quite reach and only managed to make a rip across the sky. Because the large hand's swing was so powerful, the witch lost her balance and fell face down on the floor, making the other witches giggle.

"I'll go," the Hereditary Witch stated, "you weren't able to get high enough, but I can cast a spell that gives me wings, so I can soar up into the skies and tear that blanket down," and she flew away.

She flew as high and as hard as she could until she reached the huge blanket that covered the entire earth, and she flapped her wings with all her might, stretched out her hand, and flew straight into it. But she was exhausted and had expended all of her energy on flying so high that she ended up pushing her head through the fabric and getting trapped.On the other hand, all of the sun's light was focused on the Hereditary Witch's head, and it was so hot that it scorched all of her fine feathers, leaving her wings bare. The Hereditary Witch let out a loud screech and yanked as hard as she could to free herself, but she was too exhausted to create another wing spell, so she crashed all the way back to Earth.

The small solitary witch had been thinking throughout all of this.

"I might be small," she reasoned, "but I bet I could make it up there," and she flew away quietly, without saying anything to anyone. When she got to the surface, she used her wand to make a tiny hole, and a little light came through. She picked again and again, creating thousands of small holes. Back on the ground, the other witches were arguing over who should attempt next when they noticed the little spots of light in the sky and remarked how lovely it looked. They forgot about their struggle and started pointing out how the tiny holes looked like images if you joined them together, and no one noticed Solitary Witch's little, fatigued body slipping back down to the earth.

The Supreme Spirit spotted the Solitary Witch and scooped her up and returned her to the rest of the witches, who were distraught that while they were bickering, the smallest among them had been the bravest and created such a thing of beauty. The Supreme Spirit observed their remorse and told them that he would remove the blanket and restore the light, but that for half of every day, the blanket would reappear, unmended, to remind them not to fight.

"Look," the cave witch remarked, pointing from above, "the rip from the coven-based witch's gigantic hand is a great streak across the sky. Where the hereditary witch poked her head through is the moon, and most beautiful of all are the solitary witch's stars."

The girl was distressed because she still didn't have the answer to her questions, but she was determined to keep going, so she said goodbye to the cave witch and continued on her journey.

~TBC~

[chanelladia]

Chapter 5: With All My Heart

She eventually came to a broad land where she noticed a large orange tree and a woman standing next to it.

"Good evening," the young lady remarked.

The woman stared at her.

"Good evening," she greeted. "What brings you here to my tree?"

"I'm terribly starving; perhaps I'd be able to beg for a little food from you before I continue on to find where the stars come from; I'm planning to catch one and keep it for myself," the young girl pleaded.

"Is that so?" the woman asked, looking up at the sky. "I once had a friend who traveled through the stars. He visited a lot of planets and met an individual who believed he owned all of the stellar objects by virtue of the fact that he had fantasized of owning them first. He spent his life counting them. My friend thought he was very strange." The woman patted the ground beside her. "Sit down for a moment and tell me your story while you munch."

The girl sat down and told the woman about the dolphins in the ocean, the corals on the sandy shore, the witch in the cave, and all of the tales they had shared.

"I just don't know who should be believed," she confessed. "I'm afraid I'll never locate the stars and grasp one for myself."

The lady laughed. "Why, the stars are right there in the sky! And your friends who told you the stories are there in the stars as well; look, there's a silhouette of a woman, corals, and dolphins over there.” she said

“You don't need to capture something to make it yours; a friend once told me that you must love something to truly belong to you. Do you love the stars?" she continued to ask.

"With all my heart," the young girl said, and they sat together, watching the stars move above them.

The small girl understood that she doesn't have to be the one who captures the stars in order for them to be hers. Sometimes all you have to do is admire and love it, and it will be yours.

The End.