||open|| }x{ Starlight, star bright.

[Serendipity]

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Twinkle, twinkle little star,
How I wonder what you are,
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.

A Star is born once every two dozen years. They come from angels who have fallen in love with humans. Their children are half angel and half human and were once able to live on earth with both their parents and live out their unusually long lives in peace. Until humans found a way to collect their life force and use it sustain their own lives. The angels, who have sworn never to harm a human being, had no choice but to take their children into heaven with them. But they could not enter heaven and instead were hidden away throughout the universe just out of reach of heavens doors. Their luminescent glow was so bright, that even the humans from earth could see once night had fallen. The Moon was no longer the only bright object viewable at night. And this was how Stars were made.

They were ethereal beings Stars, and there was great magic in them which came from being born half human and half angel. Not only was their glow so bright that they were visible from earth, but they also had the power to sustain their own lives and live for centuries or more. They could also watch over the earth and its inhabitants and grant any human they thought most deserving of it, a wish if they wished upon the stars. Many Stars longed to join the human race and experience all the emotions that came with being a human down on earth.

But if a Star ever fell from the sky back down to earth, the only way they could return to the sky was if an angel helped them. Some stars however, thought not to seek out the help of an angel and hoped to live amongst the humans in secret instead of only watching them from above. But the humans who hunted stars would capture them and drain their life force greedily, and the star would die.

New York City, Central Park. August, 2015.

It had all happened so fast.

One minute she was dimming her bright light to a soft glow, in preparation for the sun to make its usual appearance. The moon had already begun to make its decent from the sky as New York City readied for morning to break. It was time for her and the other Stars to rest and recharge their energy for when nightfall returned. Their job was done for one night; the moon would call upon them again when nightfall came around once more. New York no longer needed them right now; they had a much brighter star on the way to shine light over the city and its inhabitants. And Lyra was glad for it, she had burned away most of her energy this time, their friend the moon hadn’t been so vivid tonight and it had needed more of their brightness to light up the night sky.

Though she usually enjoyed being the brightest Star in this section of sky, sometimes it took its toll, especially if she had been called upon to grant a wish. The woman had been most deserving of it, Lyra had watched over her every night for months to make sure her wish wouldn’t be wasted. The woman, who would have been in her mid-thirties, had a son who had gone off to serve his country and he had been away for six long months (Lyra had another Star friend watching over him for her, to make sure he would come home to his mother safe and sound) and all his letters had failed to reach his mother. All the woman yearned for was his letters; she desperately wanted to know he was alright. It was only a simple wish, but still Lyra had to make sure this woman truly deserved her help. Humans could be tricky creatures after all, deceiving and greedy. And to grant a wish, even a simple one, had to be done carefully, it sapped away ones energy source and a stars energy source was as precious to them as gold or diamonds were to humans.

So she looked forward to turning her light off and sleeping whilst the sun was out. She did not expect what happened next as it had only happened a handful of times before and not in her lifespan. Lyra had heard rumours of it happening in the other parts of the galaxy, not that she ever expected it to happen to her constellation, the meteors were massive and came hurtling towards her and the other Stars from out of nowhere. It appeared that they had been sucked in by a black hole somewhere in another section of the galaxy and spat out directly above Lyra and the others.

There was no stopping it, it was too late and they didn’t have time to summon for help. Lyra didn’t even have time to scream before a large meteor slammed into her. It was lucky for her and the others who had the misfortune of being hit by one that they were -for the most part- immortal beings and though she had the wind knocked out of her she was not psychically harmed. Once something in space gathered momentum it was impossible to slow down, Lyra and the meteor continued to gain speed towards earth and they were unstoppable. As she spiralled towards the earth she caught glimpses of her fellow Stars heading in the same direction unable to stop or be stopped. They were headed for earth. A place she had only ever dreamed of visiting, a place that held so many more adventures than her home in the sky. She relished the idea of going there, of being amongst the humans, to experience something new and exciting.

Star light, star bright
The first star I see tonight,
I wish I may, I wish I might,
Have the wish I wish tonight,

Her excitement only lasted for a second however as she remembered what the Angel’s had warned them about when they’d asked why they could not join them on earth and meet the humans they watched over. They had been told that there were humans upon the earth that called themselves Star Hunters and the Angel’s had explained that they were the reason why Stars could no longer follow the Angels down to earth. These Star Hunters waited for them there, they wished to capture and drain a Star of his or her life force so that they could continue to live forever. It was selfish and cruel and Lyra shivered in terror whenever the name was mentioned and wished never to have the misfortune of meeting one of them.

Before she had time to panic over the fact that she was now on her way down to earth and would be exposed to such a terror, she entered the earth’s atmosphere with a loud crack and burst of flame. Air rushed into her lungs, filling her with the strangest feeling of heaviness, but at the same time a need for it, she needed this air to survive in this atmosphere. The fire that burned around her upon entering the earth’s atmosphere quickly sputtered out as she hurtled towards the ground. The meteor that was the reason for her dislodgment from space had broken up into small pieces no bigger than her hands and sprayed the ground erratically as she came to land in a heap on the soft grass of Central Park. She used whatever energy she could manage, aware that she should not use all of it just in case, to slow her landing a bit, but she still landed with a loud thud and yelp of pain or what she assumed was pain as she had never felt anything like it before, but knew that it was certainly something she did not like.

“Oh,” Lyra moaned as she unfolded her limbs from underneath her slender frame. Her limbs felt heavy and strange to her, she was used to being so light and weighing nothing and it was a struggle for her to lift her now weighted body from the ground. Grass stained her hands and knees and the ankle length dress she wore was not only grass stained but singed a little as well. She stumbled forwards, unused the walking and the effort it took. She was used to simply floating from constellation to constellation, though she had them and knew what they were, she had never had to use them, having to actually use her legs was bizarre though it was something she would have to adjust to quickly if she had any chance of surviving here on earth.

You're a shooting star I see
A vision of ecstasy
So shine bright, tonight you and I
We're like beautiful diamonds in the sky

“She’s over here!”

The sound of a man’s voice bought her out of her daze and Lyra spun around on her unsteady feet to see who it was that had spoken. He had called out to others, telling them that she was here. The man had a look of recognition in his dull brown eyes, but Lyra knew that she didn’t know him not even from when she watched over the earth and a select few human’s whose lives she found interesting. She knew that this man was a stranger to her. It was as the other’s he had called out to come to join him that she realized that these men where the Star Hunters the Angel’s had warned them about. They had been waiting for her, somehow knowing she was falling from the heavens and they were ready to capture her the moment she did.

She hadn’t even had a chance to get used to her own legs let alone take in her surroundings, but as her bright blue orbs gazed quickly around the group of men that had begun to form in front of her; she realized that she was in a park of some kind, Central Park in fact. She recognised it immediately; this was her favourite location in New York to gaze down upon at night because it always had something different to offer each night; a different group of humans walking its winding paths, couples strolling hand in hand, little kids and even the elderly feeding the ducks in the pond (she sometimes woke during the day to take a quick peek to see what the humans got up to at that time). Now, however she wished she could be anywhere else but where she currently stood.

They surrounded her quickly and with an efficiency that told her they had done this many times before. She said nothing, but the fear in her bright blue eyes was enough and the men sneered resentfully at her, some even laughed at her fear. She whipped her silvery blonde locks from side to side as she desperately searched for an escape route. She could feel her heart racing, another unfamiliar feeling that she did not like and it only made her panic more as she realized her own fear. She was a young star, a bright star and her energy burned more brightly than others, but now was fear gripped her, the glow of her energy faded and made everything around her seem so much darker.

Shine bright like a diamond…

Yet as one of the men hastily made his way toward her, holding what appeared to be a large net in his hands, Lyra took a deep breath and held out her palm in his direction. Before he was able to get any closer and capture her with his net, a blast of bright light and surge of energy erupted from her palm and the man went flying backwards, knocking some of his friends down with him. It was in this pandemonium that she fled, making use of her legs as best she could as she weaved in and out of tree trunks. The angry shouts of the men behind her only made her move faster, her bare feet pounding against the hard surface of earth as she forced herself to continue forwards and not look back.

She stumbled to her knees a few times but ignored the pain and got straight back up, willing herself to move faster and faster, she did not want the Star Hunters to capture her. Soon she emerged from the trees and came upon a footpath made of an even harder substance than the grass she’d been running on. Her feet ached, her throat was sore from desperately sucking in the cool nights air and she felt like her heart was going to burst from her chest it was beating so rapidly. She felt hot and sweaty despite the cool night’s air, she was sure her fair cheeks had turned bright red by now, and this was another feeling unfamiliar to her, another feeling that she wasn’t fond of either.

Lyra had no idea where she was going, she only knew that she could not stop; she could not stop running until she was sure they had stopped chasing after her.

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A Star falls from the heavens. The Angels, they need to save her.
So shine bright tonight, you and I we’re beautiful like diamonds in the sky…