Verna said that a long, long time ago, there was a little star in the sky. It wasn't the brightest one, nor the biggest or the most important. It was just there, in its place, quietly shining, lighting the small patch of night sky it was meant to light. It had never thought of leaving. But one night, a great wind came. A wind that blew from the depths of the universe, carrying a force even Verna could not name, and it swept the little star from its place—where it had been for a thousand years, ten thousand years, for as long as it could remember—off its course. It was lost. It drifted through unfamiliar skies for a long, long time. Around it were no constellations it knew, no familiar paths, no old neighbor in the southwest that had always, every night, been the first it saw, shining with its gentle, steady glow. It was afraid. It did not know where it was drifting, or if it could ever find its way back, or if it was still a "star"—if a star was not in its place, was it still a star? And so it drifted, for a long time. Then, one night, it looked down and saw a lake. It was a very still, very deep lake. No one came by day, and no one came by night. The lake did not know what it was waiting for; it simply reflected the sky, day after day, the clouds, the birds that passed overhead. That night, the lost little star, gazing down from high above, saw this lake. And the lake was gazing back at it. They looked at each other, for a moment. Then the little star made a decision. It gathered the last of its strength and fell from the sky—not crashing into the lake's heart, but brushing, gently, very gently, across its surface. In that instant, a ripple spread across the lake. A very small one. It smoothed over quickly. But the water remembered that warmth. Not burning. Not destruction. Just a warmth, gentle, tender—like a greeting that had not yet found its words. The little star drifted on. It did not know the lake would remember it, that the ripple would still be there, at the lake's deepest place, long, long after—circling, slowly, again and again. It was only a lost star. But that lake, from that day on, held within it a light that was not quite the same. Verna paused here. The campfire was almost ash. Beyond the old window of the wizard's tower, the night pressed close, dark as ink that would not stir. The girl leaned against her shoulder, very still, for a long, long time. Verna thought she had fallen asleep. "What happened next." The girl's voice was very soft, muffled in the fabric of Verna's shoulder, with a small, stubborn edge. Verna smiled. She did not look down, only kept her gaze on that narrow strip of night sky, squeezed through the gap in the window. "After that," she said, "the star kept going on its way. The lake kept being a lake." "That's it?" "That's it." The girl said nothing. A long time passed. So long Verna truly thought she had fallen asleep, so long the last spark in the hearth died out, so long the night itself softened from deep black to the gray-blue just before dawn— "...No." The girl's voice, muffled, like it was rising from the bottom of very deep water. "Hm?" "This ending." The girl did not lift her head. Did not explain. Verna looked down. She saw the fingers curled into the edge of her tunic, the knuckles very faintly white. She thought for a moment. "Then," she said, very quietly, as if afraid to startle something, "did the star find its way home?" The girl did not answer. "Maybe it did," Verna went on, her voice like a feather settling on still water. "Maybe it didn't. Maybe it became a new star, in another night sky, shining over another lake." "But the lake it had touched—" She paused. "—was still its star." It was much later that Verna told the girl this. They were not close then. The girl was not yet herself, and Verna did not yet know she would stay. It was just an ordinary night, rain falling outside the window, the old wooden frame of the wizard's tower letting in a little draft. Verna had pulled a blanket from her pack, wrapped it around herself, and tossed another one to the small dragonborn in the corner—the one who was always keeping to herself, whose eyes were like some kind of ore. Then she leaned against the wall and told this story, just offhand. She didn't think the other was listening. But after she finished, in the long, long silence, she heard from that corner a sound so soft—like a sigh, like something else. "...Tell it again." Verna blinked. Outside, the rain kept falling. She drew the blanket tighter around herself, thought for a moment, and began again from the beginning. "A long, long time ago, there was a little star in the sky..."