FROZEN STARS TWENTY TWO ❝ maybe it's been years since i genuinely smiled. and maybe it's been years since i wanted to be a part of anything. ❞
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IF THERE was one thing Marley loved more than anything else in the entire universe, it was the night sky. She loved its vastness, the way it stretched as far as she could see - and then further. She loved how it was never the same and every time she gazed up at it, it was different. The stars were different, the moon was different. It was the only change she didn't mind.
It was odd to see them from afar, the stars, after living most of her life among them. She wasn't sure she liked being so far away — it was like some horrifying homesickness would ache in her chest — and there always seemed to be a yearning to return. Before, she had felt part of them. Like she belonged to the universe, almost as if she were part of the solar system itself. Now, she was just an observer, watching on as the stars glittered without her. Yet it still calmed her, strangely.
Maybe the homesickness made her feel normal if that was how you could describe it.
She found herself in this position most nights. It wasn't really anything new; her grandmother often said she had stardust in her veins, with the way she'd stare longingly out at them as they glimmered as if she belonged to them.
"Star child, you yearn for a home you can never return to," she would whisper as Marley fell asleep; young and innocent and unaware. "You were born of the stars, dear girl. Don't settle for the dust they leave behind."
She was sure she'd read it in a book somewhere — likely one which chronicled poetry — and had thought of her granddaughter's yearning for what to some were merely burning balls of light, imploding in on themselves until they ceased to exist. To some, they weren't special or noteworthy in any way. They didn't hold special meaning, didn't represent anything particularly significant.
But to Marley, they called to her. Wordlessly, a song that she was not alone in the dizzying darkness of the galaxy. Like a siren's song, hypnotising and clear. She sometimes wondered - if she closed her eyes - if some invisible cosmic entity would stretch down its arms and welcome her into the silvery embrace of the moon.
She guessedit was true what they say, that you don't know what you've got until it's gone. She lived amongst the stars, as best she could, whilst on the Ark and foolishly had hated the space station she loved upon. Now she missed it with a burning ache in her chest; a burning ache for a home she could never return to. A home that was condemned. A home that was gone.
Marley sat outside her tent, at that moment in time, her knees curled up against her chest, her face tilted upwards towards the stars. She guessed that she was smiling, she could almost feel her lips curled upwards, and maybe she was. For the first time in a long, long time, she felt at peace. A wave of contentment rolled over her as she blinked up at the night sky.
