In The Shadow of Love

Chapter 14: Stargazing

They landed on a hill after the sun had set, hoping the cover of darkness would keep any muggles from seeing Highwing land. Luckily the area was mostly rural farmland, so finding an empty spot was relatively easy.

After helping Ominis down from Highwing, Diane took their blankets out from the pack on Highwing's back, walking up the hill to the top beneath the bows of two trees.

"This is a nice area." Ominis said, holding his wand high as he let the magic flare more than usual so he could see a wider area. It cast a soft red glow on everything, pulsing rhythmically.

"I thought so too, and we went a bit west so we're far away from Hangleton. We should be safe here." She said, starting to unbraid her hair and let it flow free.

"The stars are beautiful out tonight, too. It's rare to see the sky so clear." Diane smiled, looking up as she worked on her second braid.

Ominis looked up as well, but he had never seen the sky before. His wand was useless in that regard. "My aunt used to tell me about stars." He said softly.

Diane looked over to him in surprise at the words, but smiled softly as she finished taking her braid out. "Here, come on." She said, taking one of his hands and leading him a little ways down the hill.

"Where are we going?" Ominis said in confused, but just as he finished she stopped.

"Lay down." She said, getting on the ground as well.

"W-what?" He stammered anxiously.

"It's fine, lay down! I want to show you something." She chuckled at how flustered he looked.

He laid down in the grass, not sure what she was planning. It prickled against his neck, only adding to his tension when he heard her rustle against the grass right beside him. Why was she so close?!

"Now, give me your hand." She said in a softer tone.

He did actually blush this time, offering the hand nearest her with a bit of embarrassment. What was she doing?

He felt her take his hand in hers, shifting his fingers so he was making a pointing motion as she scooted right up next to him so their heads were touching gently. He could feel her curls against his cheek, only flustering him further.

"That's Pegasus." She said softly, using her hand over his to guide him to point toward it. "There's stars all across the sky, small lights in the darkness, and Pegasus is the biggest constellation visible right now."

Ominis felt his breath catch, having never known the positions of any of the stars before. Astrology class had been useless to him, so he'd always been exempt from it.

"What other ones are there?" He asked eagerly.

"This is part of Pisces right below it," she moved his hand a bit to point toward it. "It represents fish that Eros and Aphrodite turned into to escape from he monster Typhon."

"Where's serpens?" He had at least heard of that one.

Diane chuckled that he would of course want to know where the snake constellation was. She turned their hands east, stopping to point to it. "It goes up and down like this, and at the top is the serpents head." She said, moving their hands along the constellation. "It represents Apollo's son Asclepius, who was a healer who killed a snake brought it back to life with herbs given to it by another snake." She moved their hands slightly to the west. "This is the other snake it resurrected."

Ominis was a bit struck by that, expecting the background to be much darker. The Serpens constellation represented healing? Not only that, but resurrection... by another snake.