Devil Rose

In a Magi Discord we had a Secret Santa and this is the present I made @holdmeproposeme from the prompt of "Nights under the Stars"

AN: I had my kids help come up with the different constellations (I made the stars and had each of them connect the dots to form different objects)

Under the same night sky, different cultures trace different meanings among the stars.

Three stories, one constellation, and the quiet unity of a world that keeps turning.

~*~

The darkened sky moving ever so slowly, the same, familiar stars that have looked down on the world for a thousand years. Splashes of white dot the near black canvas, twinkling as they continue their nightly dance. Among them, a loose cluster of ten burns a little brighter than the rest, standing out enough that three simultaneously observe despite being separated by vast distances. Uneven, unremarkable at first glance, and yet impossible to mistake once noticed.

In Rakushou, Hakuryuu Ren pauses beneath them. He could use their strength. Their guidance. He was at a crossroads. Could they help with where he needed to go to accomplish what he had to do?

That’s when he looks up. Immediately his eyes are drawn to Tianmen—The Hole in the Mountain. Being an imperial prince, he was taught the many constellations in the sky and all their lore. Even as a boy, this Heaven’s Gate had always drawn him in.

In the age before dynasties had names, Heaven appointed a general to guard the road between what was and what would be. He was given no city, no throne—only a mountain with a single opening cut through its heart. Those who passed beneath the arch were changed. Some emerged as rulers. Some as exiles. Some did not emerge at all. The general asked Heaven why he was not allowed to follow. Heaven replied: “Because the gate must remain.” When the mountain finally split from age and pressure, the general was lifted with it, fixed among the stars. The opening remains, even now, perfectly shaped. Kou scholars say the Gate appears brightest during times of upheaval. Not as a warning— but as a reminder: No one stays whole forever. They pass through, or they break.

If he undertook the journey, would he come out conqueror? Or would he be crushed? Or was he only the nameless general fixed forever at the gate.

He rubs his wooden arm, reminded of already gaining the power of Zagan. Maybe ruler was possible?

“Hakuryuu.”

Pulled back to the present, Hakuryuu turns towards the palace to see Kouha framed by light from the doorway behind him.

Kouha waves. “Come on! Everyone’s waiting!”

Quietly, under his breath, Hakuryuu ponders, “Are they really?” Or was it all for show?

Would passing through the gate crush all of them?

As for now, Hakuryuu gives the Gate one last look before turning back toward the palace lights.

As the Gate sinks lower in the sky of Kou, it is among the first to appear for Reim but by another name. Heroic and legendary, commanding the reverence of mortals.

Lo’lo does not bow his head to them as he stands guard outside a noble’s party. An easy job; he only agreed to it because his captain was in attendance. Though dimmed by the city lights, the stars were still there as constant as they shown back in his homeland.

Reim has names for those stars—new names, polished and loud, barely two centuries old. He snorts softly at the thought.

“They see some sort of flying horse there. But I know the truth!”

The truth of Ishkura.

When the world was young, the rivers argued over where they should end. A red fish swam through all of them. The currents tried to tear it apart. The stones cut its sides. Still it moved—forward, always forward—until its scales burned like embers beneath the water. The spirits asked the fish why it did not rest. The fish answered: “Because stopping is how the river wins.” When the fish finally leapt from the water, it did not fall back. It scattered itself into stars so that even the landlocked would remember: Life survives by motion. Strength is not stillness. Fanalis elders say the fish swims the sky so that lost people never forget which way is forward.

The red fish who would not stop swimming. Lo’lo grins in determination that he too won’t stop. He’s had his share of currents and stones trying to tear him apart. But with his captain to lead the way, he will be the one doing the tearing!

Meanwhile, somewhere in the oceans between Reim and Rakusho, an Imuchakk ship sails south to Sindria. A father with his children that are too excited to go sleep in the cots below gather at the stern of the ship. They have no fire in the center, but natures nightlights provide them with enough as they travel to warmer waters.

“That right there is Qilaktuq,” Hinahoho explains as he points up at the same constellation that others had been admiring.

His children hold their knees as the look up in awe, stars sparkling off their eyes. It didn’t matter how big they’d get, stories from home always made traveling less arduous. And this particular tale reinforced that home was where they made it.

Long ago, when the ice still learned how to crack, there was a hunter who lost his way during the longest night. The wind erased his tracks, and the dark swallowed the sound of his voice. He found a great shell half-buried in the snow, left behind by a sea that had once reached farther inland. It was empty, but unbroken. The hunter curled inside it and waited. The shell did not stop the cold, but it broke the wind. It did not feed him, but it gave him time. He stayed awake through the night, listening to the ice shift and the stars turn. When dawn came, his people found him there—alive. The elders say the shell was lifted into the sky so that no one would forget: endurance is not loud, and survival is not shameful. That is why the shell in the stars never opens. It is still waiting.

“So even if we are away from Imuchakk, we can still be home,” Hinahoho conludes. “And if you take the central line from the shell and follow it three lengths, you’ll find the brightest star, Ataataq. It always hangs above our village so you’ll never be lost. The shell points the way.”

The ship presses on and the night continues its slow turning.

Over Kou, the Gate drifts toward the horizon. Over Reim, the Fish swims steadily west. Over open water, the Shell holds its shape against the dark. Ten stars, scattered and unremarkable to those who do not know where to look.

But empires rise beneath them. Rivers carve their paths. Ships cross seas they were never meant to cross.