#maybe I was reaching a bit with the Siffrin section but STILL

[madbard]

So many stories about constellations focus on their permanence - the idea that someone or something was transformed and placed in the sky, immortalizing them. This can be an eternal punishment or warning, but so often it is an honor. A mercy. After all, constellations are beyond the reach of death and pain, and the people and creatures they depict live on in the stories told about them.

These stories are foundational to so many mythologies, and to the forgotten island, with their apparent love of astronomy, these tales would be all the more precious. I think most children from the island would be raised on those stories, myths about the sacred stars and constellations that guide lost travelers home.

Forgotten now, all of them. But the stories we are told affect us long after they have faded from our memory.

And the King was raised on stories where the greatest blessing was a final transformation into a flawless, eternal image. And Siffrin was raised on stories of unchanging constellations that repeat their passage across the sky, year after year, dutifully providing guidance and light long after their stars have burnt out.

Those stories are long forgotten now. Still, they left their mark.