#and introducing...

Richard floated next to the throne, waiting patiently with Hawkodile by his side the morning after, adjusting his pill box hat as the bodyguard complained at length about RJ's lack of discipline. When Unikitty showed up in her ornate crown, Richard floated down to his feet and bowed.

"Good morning, my queen. It feels so good to be able to say that at long last." He remains with with his head down until Unikitty approached, her paw finding its way under his chin to lift it. "I'm proud of you. I'm so proud of you."

"It must be so nice for you to be able to finally step down from running things!" The cat grinned as she took her place on her throne.

"It just means that I've done my job raising you. I will of course be available if you need any help. I don't plan on going anywhere." He gestured to a rolling suitcase by his side. "But I will be using my time in a lesser role to finally be going on my honeymoon. RJ plans on taking me across the galaxy and I don't know when I'll be back. You may have trouble contacting me and I do apologize." He smiled warmly. "I am confident that you can do this alone, however." He did hear about Cloud Cuckoo Land and how much of a chaotic mess that kingdom was, but that didn't matter given how she had been running this kingdom so far.

"What's Hawk doing here?"

"His role won't change. You still need a bodyguard and the Unikingdom Charter dictates that a bodyguard will remain with their king or queen for the rest of their days. Besides, someone needs to make sure the kingdom is safe." He could hear a horn beep in the distance and bowed again. "That is my fian... Husband. I shall take my leave." He rushed through the door, leaving Hawk and Unikitty alone.

"Okay! What's on the agenda today?" She looked over to Hawkodile, who shrugged.

"That's usually Richard's job, princess... I mean... My queen." The bodyguard scratched his head. "I think he left his clipboard on the couch. I'll go get it."

"No need!" Puppycorn's voice cracked as he rushed into the room with the clipboard. "I've totally got this!" He handed it to his sister, adjusting the backpack on his back. "Are you sure you have to go to school? I could help you!"

"Richard insisted that you go and I agree with him. It's like the last official thing he did as advisor." Unikitty pat her brother on the head and sent him on his way. She looked at the clipboard and saw that the first page was the itinerary for his honeymoon. "Can you believe he's spending his honeymoon on RJ's old ship?"

"I can't. I'm shocked RJ was willing to stay on that thing that long. I guess he's not planning on exploring the ship too much." Hawk shrugged, leaning over to look at the itinerary. "Looks like they won't be leaving the system for a while. How did Richard drag him to the Hall of Infinite Reflection?"

"I think that shows growth on RJ's part. It means he's willing to leave the past behind and try something new with the one he loves! It's so romantic!" Unikitty cooed as she flipped over to the next page. "Oh no. It doesn't look like Richard planned anything out past today."

"Unikitty, the 24th was yesterday."

"He never planned past his last work day?!" Unikitty's fur became white. "It's okay. We've got this. Was there anything special happening today? A holiday or...?"

"Actually, I'm pretty sure you had decided today would be a "problem fixy day"." Hawkodile used air quotes around the pseudo holiday name. "Y'know, to celebrate your coronation?"

"Right! Open the door wide, Hawk! Let's fix some problems!" Unikitty clapped her hands and watched as Hawkodile opened the door and five chocolate rabbits started to set up tables for food and drinks. After they've done this and left, a large line began to form of various citizens. Somewhere deep in the back of her mind, this all felt so familiar. Oh well. It was too late to back out. She glanced down at the first person in line and saw that it was...

"RJ? What are you doing here? I thought that you and Richard were on your honeymoon?" RJ laughed nervously

"Okay. He thinks that I'm helpin' get PC out of the old wishin' well. I need you to do me a favor and I know that you're doing this favor doing thing today." He rubbed his neck.

"What do you need, RJ? You know I'd help you any day."

"I don't want to take my ship. Can you help me build a new one? I have our luggage in my truck. I need something... You."

"So something with glitter and sparkles and rainbows? You don't feel like taking your big scary fist ship?" Unikitty seemed far too excited.

"Yeah. You could say that. I know you haven't master built in a while, but-" Before the words came out of his mouth, Unikitty already had a sleek and sparkly ship built. It didn't have any room to sleep, but it was still very roomy and far more aerodynamic than the Rexcelsior.

"Just let anybody at a hotel know that you're with me. You won't have to pay for anything." She pushed RJ and the ship out the door with Hawk's help. "Now get to that honeymoon of yours! I don't want to see you guys again for another month at least!" She teased. The chimera and his queen returned to the throne.

It very quickly became a long stream of villagers needing help with various things. That is, until Master Frown and Brock approached the throne. Frown smirked as Brock ate a hot dog.

"Oh. Hello, Casey! Is there anything you need for me?" Hawkodile looked like he was ready to throw Frown out the window.

"Yeah... No. I'm just here to watch. You look tired. It's giving me joy." He snatched the hot dog the person behind him held and took a big bite out of that.

"BRO. We were here to say hi! That's what you said!" Brock stared daggers at him as Hawk ushered the next person in front of Unikitty.

"Nah. I really want to see the new Queen sweat a little." Master Frown moved aside and did just as he said. Unikitty began to tire as the day went on, Master Frown her shadow as she worked. Brock complained the entire time, but he was easy enough for Unikitty to ignore. After the sun reached the midway point in the sky and Master Frown had left because he had gotten bored, Unikitty was approached by a small, brick built creature. Purple wings folded across a rounded body and held a folder. The voice that came out of the beek was unsure but calming.

"Hello. Is one of you Regent Richard Brickington? I was told he would be the one to speak to regarding interplanetary affairs." She shuffled her papers in the folder as she waited patiently, the lavender cloud that pretended to be her hair swirling over her one eye.

"Sorry. He's on a vacation. Can we help you?" Hawkodile spoke with distrust as he scanned the creature for weapons and bad intentions.

"Yes... I am Treguna of the Wiztastics tribe." She bowed her body, the cloud obscuring her face now. "I came here to perform my magic for the Unikingdom on the occasion of the Queen's coronation."

"Of the who?" Unikitty asked as Hawkodile whipped out a satphone and placed a call.

"I'm from.... from the planet Mixel." The monocle fell off of her face and Treguna deftly threw it back on her beek. "From the Wiztastics tribe? I'm here to perform my magic for the queen." Hawkodile nodded and hung the phone up.

"You're pretty far from home. Did you talk to Richard about performing?"

"Yes. He was very interested in our magic, since he said that preforming magic is lost from your world." Treguna's bunnylike ears.

"You're late then. Our Queen's coronation was yesterday." Hawkodile stated flatly. Treguna looked down, her full body leaning down with her.

"Oh... I had to find a ship to catch a ride with. It took longer than I thought it would. I'll go then. I thank you for your time." She turned clumsily on one leg as she went to leave. Before she could go far, Unikitty stopped her.

"Wait! You can do real magic?" Unikitty asked, head cocked to one side.

"Ye... Yes. Since I was built."

"Show me." Unikitty's ear twitched as she watched Treguna turn back around. She waved her wings and a tower of donuts appeared in front of her.

"Your kingdom is very... Very magical!" Treguna bobbed up and down, nibbling on a donut as she did. "I barely had to try with this!"

"Can you teach us how?" Unikitty asked softly, reaching for a donut. Hawkodile smacked her paw away.

“Okay! Hmm. Theeen, next up, mind control or mind reading?”

Taewon pauses, then turns his head just enough that his little brother can see him raise an eyebrow. Cheolmin waves a hand hastily. “Oh, it’s not for the same character, this is a different one. I’m making a whole cast!”

Ah, alright. It was getting a bit unbalanced for just one. “Mind control.”

Scribble, scribble, scribble. Taewon times his chopping to the pencil strokes, sliding the diced tomatoes into a bowl as Cheolmin dusts eraser crumbs off his notebook. “Alright, and last one! Being reborn as yourself or as someone else?”

Taewon frowns. “In the same world?”

“Uh, not always, it’s like—reliving your life in your own world, or being born into a new life in a different world when you die.”

“…Reincarnation as someone else.”

“What? Really? You wouldn’t want a do-over for your mistakes? Make better choices in life?”

The answer Cheolmin prefers is clear, but he’s asked precisely the wrong person this question. Perhaps if it were Dokja. “No. You’ll gain more skills and experience across different lives than you will repeating a single one.” And there are times you can’t make a better choice. Only a different mistake.

“Huh,” Cheolmin says, a little subdued. Maybe he noticed the edge to Taewon’s voice. “That’s true… and reliving your whole life would probably get boring. If you start from the very beginning, I mean. Actually, no, even if you start from the middle… But story-wise, the potential for—Ohhh, I can’t decide… If it was me—Ack, I don’t know! Okay, fine, maybe something different entirely. Or I could have two characters, one regressor and one reincarnator? Hyung, what do—”

Taewon doesn’t hear the rest of his sentence clearly. Dizziness slams into him with all the force of a furious dragon, and he crumples, knife clattering out of his hand to who knows where. That’ll need washing, he thinks woozily, and hopes he doesn’t fall onto the blade.

He’s sitting on the floor when he can make sense of his vision again. Cheolmin is crouched in front of him, hands pressed against each of their foreheads, calling his name frantically. He watches as Cheolmin turns his head, opening his mouth and stopping before any words can escape him, an uncertain, panicked look crossing his face.

“’S okay,” he mumbles.

Cheolmin’s head snaps back to him. He looks near tears. “Are you okay? What was that?”

“Fine. Dizzy.”

“Are you sick? Do  you want to lie down?”

“No need.” Taewon pushes his brother’s hand away irritably. The dizzy spell is fading just as fast as it hit him. What was that? Either way, it’s his problem to worry about. “I’m not sick.”

“That you know of.”

He glares at Cheolmin, who just sticks out his tongue at him, looking less stressed. “I’m not sick,” he repeats insistently, getting up and pulling his brother with.

“Whatever you say, hyung. Just don’t get me sick with it too.”

*

Cheolmin gets sick.

The thing is, though, it wasn’t sickness. Taewon wasn’t ill at all. Just the lone dizzy spell, gone so fast he’d almost forgotten it an hour later.  So that night, when Cheolmin passes out in his chair watching Taewon play games on the computer, he thinks nothing of it and just carries his baby brother to bed.

Then Cheolmin won’t wake up the next day, and that’s when everyone panics.

*

He spends a week at the hospital, unconscious for the entirety of his stay. The doctors aren’t sure what to make of it; nothing looks wrong in his brain, nor in his body. The most they can detect is strange upticks and downticks in brain activity.

When he wakes up struggling to remember even his own name, smiling vaguely and distantly at things, everyone else says things like ‘tragedy’ and ‘abnormal stroke’ and ‘anomaly’ and ‘I’m so sorry’.

Taewon stares at him, dead silent. He waits. He waits through the rest of the hospital checks and the apologies and the useless prescriptions and the instructions to watch over him. He waits through the drive home and the reorganization of Cheolmin’s room into something resembling his hospital lodgings. He waits through that night and the next day at school and that early evening, until he’s assigned to keep watch on him. He waits for their mother to stop fretting and rush away to the living room, hurried along by his cold glare.

Then he turns that glare on the person sitting in the bed and says, “Do you have a name?”

The person looks back at him, wearing his brother’s face. “What?”

“Do you have a name of your own.”

“…My name’s Cheolmin.” That distant smile. “We only just got back from the hospital; if your memory was faltering too, you should’ve—”

“No.” He studies its face. “Reincarnation or regression?”

A blink. “You’re not making much sense, hyung.”

Taewon grits his teeth, then forcibly relaxes every muscle in his body. “If you had to choose a superpower. Would you choose to be reincarnated as someone else, or to regress in your own timeline and relive your life?” It opens its mouth, and he snaps, “Answer.”

“…Regression.”

For a single, terrible moment, a bottomless pit of hatred breaks open under Taewon’s skin, and—snap that thing’s throat it would be so easy what right does it have to take his body his face his name—his fists clench so tight that his nails break through skin. Blood beads and runs along the creases of his palm, little streaks of wet warmth. He wonders, half-hysterical, whether the creature’s blood would feel any different against his skin.

But this is reincarnation. Or perhaps possession. He knows both intimately. There’s a chance. He doesn’t know where Cheolmin has gone—or, for that matter, where ‘Song Taewon’ himself went. There’s still a chance. Even if Cheolmin can’t be fully returned to his own body, Taewon might still be able to get his little brother back.

He uncurls his fists, ignoring the red staining his fingertips, and studies the thing. It’s got an eyebrow raised. He can’t read the emotions behind it. He wishes the others were here.

“You don’t know your own name,” he repeats, just to confirm.

“Like I said, it’s—” The thing wisely stops speaking. Taewon can only imagine what his face must look like right now, to elicit such a response. “I don’t know the name you want.”

“Can you see this,” Taewon says, and raises a hand, focusing. For a precious few seconds, his aura flickers around his fingers, raw mana gathering together in a concentration low enough that it’s not explosive. There’s a flash of recognition in the thing’s eyes, and it leans forward—before freezing and straightening back up wordlessly.

“Yes,” it says simply. Taewon nods and dispels his mana, and they both ignore the way it had sharpened to knife-point and arched threateningly before the thing had stopped moving.

Right. Best to start with the basics. “You’re a reincarnator,” Taewon starts. “Like me.”

There’s interest in the thing’s eyes now. “Like you?” it repeats in a perfect mimicry of Cheolmin’s amused-disbelief tone.

Taewon feels precisely nothing at that realization.

*

They get through the basics. As well as a handful of other, less basic points of discussion. It’s not easy figuring out next steps; Taewon can’t examine the reincarnator in as much depth as he’d like, not without harming his brother’s relatively fragile body. They only have brief snatches of privacy to talk; after Taewon came out of Cheolmin’s room with blood on his hands—even though it was his own and not the reincarnator’s—his parents had gotten extremely dogged about not leaving them alone. They have their lives to get back to, as well, even if Taewon wants little more than to engage in some controlled demolition and ditch school altogether.

He makes do. He gets good at getting to the point.

“You tried for my body first,” he told it early on, and was met with a confused expression. “I fainted before Cheolmin did.”

“Is that so…”

“But you chose Cheolmin instead. Why?”

“I wouldn’t have.” Taewon bristled. “By which I mean that if I wasn’t able to take your body, then I must have realized you were aware of reincarnation mechanics. It’d be risky to choose another person close to you, especially when you might try to get them back. It doesn’t make sense.”

All very good points. He grunted and moved on.

*

“I remembered something,” the reincarnator says casually. Taewon’s head snaps around to stare at it. “Won’t you ask—”

“Tell me.”

“Well, if you’re going to be so rude, I might not—”

Taewon grabs its arm and squeezes. Not so hard as to bruise, but hard enough to make his point. It laughs, a slightly uncomfortable light in its eyes. “Alright, alright. I might as well warn you now that it may not be very helpful.”

“What is it.”

“I was asked a question before I came here,” it says, gingerly extracting itself from his grip. “It was… I don’t remember the question itself. But I remember it was blue. And sharp.”

That’s profoundly confusing. “Sharp?”

“Like static electricity.” It frowns. “Or perhaps not static. Possibly just electricity.”

Blue electricity. Taewon’s breath catches. Surely not. He ignores the way the reincarnator has frozen, staring carefully at him, and storms out of the house.

*

There’s one afternoon where their father shoos them out of the house—some fresh air should help you recover—and sends them to a nearby park. When the reincarnator raises an eyebrow at him, Taewon looks around, stalks over to the first bench he sees, and sits down firmly.

The reincarnator opens its mouth, pauses, then closes it without saying anything, simply gesturing towards the walking trail instead. Taewon crosses his arm and waits. It exhales in apparent acquiescence, then turns and walks off alone.

Taewon only moves once, to switch to a bench with a better view of the entire trail, and tracks the reincarnator’s progress. It seems content to loop slowly around the park, pausing occasionally to stretch a leg or roll its ankles. He watches it look around, seemingly fascinated by the birds flitting between the trees. Has it never seen wildlife before? Or does it just not remember anything of the sort? He frowns.

Then his frown gets more pronounced, because if he isn’t mistaken, that’s one of Cheolmin’s classmates who’s walking up to the reincarnator.

Taewon stands and moves towards the pair as fast as he can without drawing their attention, detouring to the side so he can take cover behind some nearby trees. The reincarnator seems startled by the classmate’s sudden appearance, a slight crease at the corners of its eyes as they talk. The classmate’s shoulders rise and she takes a step back, and when her voice rises in dismay, Taewon hears, “…don’t remember anything?”

“No,” the reincarnator answers. “I couldn’t even remember my own name.”

The classmate gasps. “That’s terrible… No wonder you haven’t been to school! We’ve been worried, you know.”

The reincarnator twitches. “You have?” it asks, and then belatedly adds, “That is to say, thank you for your concern.”

Taewon shares its surprise; Cheolmin had never mentioned friends, though he knew all of his classmates by name. He hadn’t realized he was that close to any of them.

“I—well,” the classmate says, cheeks flushing. “I’ve been worried, at least. I’m sure some of the others—! But, I mean, no one had your number, so we couldn’t get in touch with you, and…” She shrugs.

The reincarnator studies her carefully; Taewon sees some sort of realization cross its face. “Ah,” it murmurs. “You were worried.”

The girl’s cheeks flush even further. “As—As a friend! I mean—Um…”

You weren’t his friend, Taewon realizes, chest clenching briefly. But to you, he was…

The reincarnator sighs. “I’m sorry,” it says gently. “But I’m not… Right now, I’m not in a good place. I haven’t been…”

It shakes its head and meets her eyes. “I’m not the person you want.” Its tone is apologetic.

The girl is still for a second before her shoulders slump. “I understand,” she mumbles. “I’m sorry, I—”

She steps back again, only for the reincarnator to stop her with a hand on her shoulder. “I’m not the person you want,” it repeats, “but you seem nice. I’d like to get to know you.” It smiles, cheeks dimpling. “As friends, mind you.”

The girl brightens. “That’s—That’s okay,” she says, smiling tentatively back. “Um, could I get your number? I really do think the class would like to know you’re okay.”

“Alright. So long as you don’t go sharing it around.”

“Of course not!” The girl’s horror fades when the reincarnator winks at her, and they both laugh softly.

Taewon mulls over the interaction as the two exchange numbers. When they start to bid each other farewell, he slips away before their attention is freed enough to notice him.

He’s resumed his seat well in time for the reincarnator’s next pass by his bench. He watches with a stony expression as it steps off the walking trail and approaches him, stopping just out of reach.

“I thought you should know that I met one of Cheolmin’s acquaintances.”

Taewon nods in acknowledgement.

“…I kept things cordial. The relationship should be intact for him to…”

It fumbles for the end of its sentence, uncharacteristically flustered. When he doesn’t react at all, though, it seems to give up and simply nods, then returns to its walking.

…‘Cordial’, huh.

*

Taewon cooks dinner every night. Tonight, the reincarnator is sitting at the counter and watching him. He ignores its gaze burning against the side of his head, and eventually, it breaks first.

“Could you… teach me?”

He blinks and looks up at it.

“How to cook,” it clarifies.

He stares at it. Weighs the request. “…Alright.”

“Ah, thank you—”

“But you do exactly as I say.”

“…Of course.”

His mother peers into the kitchen a while later. “Have you—Oh, Cheolmin! You’re helping cook?”

Taewon ignores the conversation happening around him, only putting vegetables in front of the reincarnator for it to dice and slide into his pan. He rues that decision a second later when his mother steps inside to peek at what they’re making. “Ah, not dumplings?”

“No,” he says frostily, keeping his eyes on the stove and stirring mechanically with his chopsticks.

“That’s a pity,” she says, and the reincarnator must look over at her curiously, because she continues, “You both loved dumplings—it was the only recipe he taught you, you know? You used to help make them every time before the… well, before, so when I saw you here I thought—”

Taewon slams down his chopsticks on the counter and turns his gaze on his mother. She’s gone dead silent, eyes wide. “Dinner isn’t ready yet. Come back later.”

“I—I just—”

“Later,” Taewon all but snarls, and his mother flees.

He’s lost his appetite. He finishes cooking, the reincarnator wordlessly assisting him, and delivers it to the table before heading straight for his room. Behind him, he hears his parents whispering to each other, father rebuking mother—don’t you remember? he made those the night that Cheolmin… you know.

Taewon sits on his bed in silence and stares at the wall. At some point, the reincarnator comes in. He watches distantly as it puts down an uneaten plate of food on his desk, then hesitantly looks around, studying the martial art competition awards lined up along his shelves.

“Why Cheolmin?” he asks abruptly. The reincarnator doesn’t jump, but it does stiffen before looking over its shoulder at him.

“I already answered this.” Its voice isn’t offended or defensive; it’s merely a statement of fact.

Taewon stays silent, and it hums. “I wouldn’t have chosen him,” it murmurs.

They’re both quiet. The reincarnator nods, resigned, and turns to leave.

“You wouldn’t have,” Taewon repeats. This time, the reincarnator does jolt, eyes snapping to him. Taewon looks at it. “You, as opposed to whom?”

It blinks. “I—I don’t know,” it says, sounding startled. “I…”

He nods and turns his gaze back to the wall.

There’s a long pause.

“…I’m sorry.”

Taewon says nothing. There’s another pause, and then the door closes.

He exhales, and starts to think.

*

“You need to choose a name,” he tells it one afternoon, the day before they’re both supposed to go back to school. It tilts its head at him, a touch warily. “You’re not Cheolmin. I’m not using his name for you.”

It hesitates. “Ah,” it says, “Fair. Well. I’ll think it over.”

It doesn’t say anything at dinner. Not a word while they’re cleaning up, and nothing when they’re preparing to sleep. Taewon goes to bed, assuming it’ll tell him in the morning. Instead, it comes to him at midnight, shaking him awake. “What,” he snaps groggily, struggling to sit up, only to snap into full awakeness when he sees its eyes, too-bright in the faint moonlight.

“Dal,” it says, strained. “You can call me Dal.”

“Like ‘moon’?”

It nods jerkily. Taewon studies its face. “Did you remember something?”

“I don’t know.” It hesitates. “Call me Dal.”

He’s got this feeling, like it’s trying to tell him something. He keeps examining it. “Okay,” he says. “What will you call me?”

It raises an eyebrow. “Your name, presumably. Unless you have another one you’re willing to give me?”

“Joonghyuk,” he says, and surprise breaks through the muted desperation on its face. “Yoo Joonghyuk.”

“Alright.” It huffs out a mirthless laugh, its features relaxing. “Joonghyuk-ssi.”

“Hyung is fine,” Taewon says, and hopes that his own sudden surprise doesn’t reflect half as clearly on his face. What is he saying?

“It is?”

“Or oppa,” he amends. There’s something strange in the reincarnator’s eyes, and he turns his head away, scowling.

“Hyung,” the reincarnator says slowly. Taewon grunts in acknowledgement, not looking back. “Joonghyuk hyung?”

“What,” he snaps.

The reincarnator exhales a quiet laugh again. “Nothing,” he says. “That’s all.”

“Then get out.”

“Yes, hyung.”

*

The next morning, Taewon stops in the middle of the walk to their school. “Dal,” he says.

“Yes, hyung?” Dal, walking behind him, stumbles to a halt just in time not to run into him. Taewon turns and finds him looking up to meet his gaze. His eyes are bright again, but not in the feverish way they’d been last night.

He’s not Taewon’s little brother. He’s not Joonghyuk’s anything. Dal being here has taken Taewon’s brother away from him, leaving him god knows where. Taewon has to remember that. “We’re not family,” he says. “That body isn’t yours. If anything happens to it—if anything’s happened to Cheolmin…” He swallows. “You’ve taken my brother’s place. I’m going to find him. And you will help, or else.”

Dal’s eyes are dimmer, now. “I understand.”

“But until then,” Taewon says, “you’re with me. Understand?”

Dal stares at him. “What does that mean?”

Taewon doesn’t answer. Dal tilts his head and switches tacks. “What… happens to me if you find Cheolmin?”

“When I find Cheolmin,” Taewon corrects sharply, then thinks about the answer for a moment. “We’ll see. Find you a different body, maybe.”

Dal’s grip is tight around the straps of his backpack, but Taewon only notices that because they loosen abruptly. “Ah,” he says faintly. “Alright.” He smiles. “Alright, hyung.”

Chapter Two

It might have been the sound of his own labored breathing that disturbed Sausage during the night, but after a few moments he also noticed that there seemed to be something scrabbling around in his room. He could swear he heard a faint beeping noise but then it stopped. “S-Scott? Is – Is that you?” he called blearily. He couldn’t see much in the dark but didn’t have the energy to turn on the light.

Someone who definitely wasn’t Scott muttered, “Signal is weak but this is the source. Bad and good timing it seems.”

They sounded like they were almost right next to his pillows. Sausage turned and attempted to push himself up, black mist curling around his hand. “W-Who’s there? H-How did you get in here?”

“Oh, you really are in rough shape. That will make this easier. Hey, over here.” A dull greenish light lit up beside the crate of health potions. Sausage was very confused by what he was seeing. There seemed to be a very small, semi-transparent bipedal creature dressed in some type of red bodysuit with a closed helmet standing on the wooden chest, holding a tiny silver box which was the source of the light.

“Who – and what – are you?”

“That’s going to take some explaining. Let me start with this: I’m from somewhere far away, and I arrived here on the night of crimson, and you caused me to crash land because of some gravity malfunction. It has taken me far too much time to track you down because everything on this planet is absurdly large, and as I now see you don’t even have that much gravity power left. Since you obviously won’t be able to help with that part of the matter, you can help me in another way – because right now, as I see it, you owe me one.”

Sausage gave a quiet little laugh then coughed. “What? I was – I was fighting monsters half the night. What do you mean ‘this planet’? …I must be delirious or something.” He eyed the tiny creature then reached over it to try to pick up one of the potions. His fingertips caught at the top of a bottle but he only managed to knock it over in the attempt.

The creature watched and shook its head judgingly. “You really don’t have a lot of time. Listen: I can give you more time, but we need to make a deal. I have a mission to carry out and I need a host to get me across this stupidly big landmass. You’re about to die, and you’re responsible for my delay. Work with me and we both benefit.”

“A mission? A host? What does that even mean?” Sausage huffed in frustration and tried again, although his hand was shaking, and he was unable to grip the neck of the next nearest bottle. He was beginning to fear what this creature meant when saying he was about to die.

“The princess of my people came to this world and was murdered. I’m here to find her killer and enact justice. But not being of royal blood, I can’t fully function in this atmosphere and have to conserve my body’s energy. If I have a host – that is, if I possess a body like yours – I’ll be able to do what I need to and then be on my way. You can have an extra day here, then let me take over and complete my mission, and afterward I leave and you can do whatever it is your species does when it expires.”

“How do you even know how much time I have left?”

“If I can possess a body, don’t you think I would know what condition it’s in?”

Sausage couldn’t believe he was still entertaining this delusion, but had to ask, “So how much time, exactly?” He remembered that at the end the mist had overwhelmed Scott without much warning.

“About four and a half hours.”

“Uh… So that’s… What time is it now..?”

“You’re not making it to sunrise, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Sausage tried to think if he could successfully manage to find Scott, get through another possible argument with him, and still say what he needed to in order to make peace with him within that time frame. As he grabbed the side of the blanket to pull it back so he could get up, he saw the mist surrounding his hand. He realized he had two options: he could try to yell for Scott so he would come to him, but he didn’t feel like he had the lung strength for that right now; or he could agree to this alien creature’s proposal and buy the time to talk to Scott in the morning. He wasn’t sure how he would explain the latter, but maybe Scott would be more reasonable by then.

“If I agree to this, promise me you’ll leave Scott out of it. Actually, no, I want you to help him. All he can think about is blaming himself, and I don’t want him to keep on like that. There has to be a way to get past all this.”

“I’ll see what I can do, after I get back.”

“Fine. So…what happens now?”

“Lay down for one thing. You’re going to fall off of this rest platform if you don’t, anyway. Then just close your eyes. I promise you won’t feel a thing.”

~*~

It was more than four hours later when Sausage opened his eyes to see daylight streaming through the curtains. He held a hand up, staring as he tried to determine if there was mist around it or if he just wasn’t fully awake yet. He felt… nominally better. Breathing seemed a little easier and his arm wasn’t as weak when he reached over to pick up one of the potions. He took a cautious sip. Much like the last time it didn’t seem to do anything to help, but he drank the whole bottle just so Scott would see that he had listened.

If only the former merling would listen to him. However, he didn’t know what else to say to ease the guilt. He could go over each incident that had led to his deaths and try to rationalize them, but he knew Scott had never gotten over the first one. When he had tried to remove that specific guilt Scott had stopped him, not wanting to be forgiven. The guilt was a part of him, integral, important to him, to always have inside. Maybe it was due to not having much of a conscience as a vampire then gaining one as an angel, particularly in regard toward Sausage as he fell in love with him.

It hurt Sausage to think about it, but maybe he himself needed to accept that Scott would continue carrying those feelings through all of his future lives. He would prefer still trying to help him heal, but this life, right now, wasn’t the one to do it. Maybe he could try again in whatever followed when the alien was done with him.

A knock on the door made his thoughts scatter. “C-Come in— Oh.”

Scott walked through the door without opening it, seeming to make a point to face away into the room as he spoke in a clipped tone, “Good morning. I’d ask how you were feeling but I know the answer won’t be ‘better’.”

“N-No, actually, I do—” Sausage stopped himself. Should he tell him about the alien? Would it make much difference? It was only an extra day – well, less than that by this point – and he would still die with no way of knowing what would happen next. “—because… I slept all right,” he continued. He felt he should say something else, but no words were coming to him.

Scott tilted his head, ear turned toward the bed. “No cough right now?”

“No, it – it cleared up a little. Maybe the potions are working better this time?”

“They’re not a long-term solution. You know that.”

“Scott, can we please just talk without all the impending doom hanging over our heads?”

The former merling didn’t reply so much as exhale loudly through his nose.

“Fine,” Sausage said sadly, “Be that way.” He fidgeted with the edge of the blanket then sighed, unable to commit to the silent treatment. “But, just— Remember, no matter what I come back as, I love you.”

“I – I know.” Scott struggled with the traditional response. He uttered a sigh of his own and finally moved, sitting at the very end of the bed out of reach but feeling like he owed it to Sausage to sit with him for at least a little while. “I still hate every second of this. I can’t think of any way it could have gone worse.”

Sausage had a few ideas but kept them to himself. He racked his brain for something funny to say instead, something to try to lighten the mood, but then Scott said, “I… won’t see when you go, or when you come back because then I might curse you all over again. I won’t know what you are. I hope it isn’t also bad, because… well, remember what I said when angel-me died? I can’t be much of a conscience for you if I’m like this.”

Sausage was about to ask him to stay beside him until that moment, but realized the situation could change very fast when the alien took over. “Hey, um, how about this for an idea: if you get some paper and a quill, I can write a note for myself, to remind me to keep that promise, too! And I’ll—” He stopped himself again. “…I’ll, um, I’ll let you know what I am when I can.”

He had to include that last part in case he wasn’t near home when the alien left, although he would hope it would have the courtesy to not abandon him thousands of blocks away. Maybe he should add a reminder in the note to keep obsidian plus a flint and steel on him so he could take a shortcut home if that did happen.

“I’m not sure that would work,” Scott replied, although he stood up. “But I’ll do it if you really want. Let me go look.”  He walked directly through the door again.

Sausage let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He really should have asked the alien creature more questions about what would happen when it took over, and when it left.

If he hadn’t simply dreamt the whole thing.

But then, he was better right now, and it was true the potions didn’t ultimately work. His thoughts then doubled back on themselves. Scott didn’t seem any more agreeable this morning, and the rest of the day would likely go the same.

“You don’t have to give me a whole day anymore,” Sausage whispered out loud. “It doesn’t matter.” He got out of bed and picked up one of the empty potion bottles, clutching it tightly as he went over to the open window beside the desk. It would be a simple matter to climb out. “Let’s go now, before he comes back. It won’t be fair, but none of this is.” He placed the bottle so it sat precariously close to the edge of the desk. “Don’t let him catch us leaving.”

“If that’s what you want,” said the creature’s voice inside his head. “Hold on to your bronchial tubes.”

Sausage then began to cough violently. His legs started to give out, causing him to stumble until he caught himself on the wall, where he saw the mist surrounding his hand once more. Scott would undoubtably hear. He shakily reached out for the windowsill.

He blacked out before he even hit the floor.

.

The sound of glass shattering caught Scott’s attention more than the coughing. The latter he couldn’t do anything about, but if Sausage got hurt by any broken pieces that would just be literal insult to injury. He left the book and quill in favor of a dustpan to clean up the glass with. This time he opened the bedroom door instead of walking through it. “Sausage, are you all…”

The room was now utterly silent. He could see some of the broken potion bottle from under the edge of his blindfold. It was across the room, not near the bed. He set down the dustpan and felt around along the blanket to be sure. No body was there. He carefully searched around to make sure Sausage wasn’t just slumped somewhere out of view, but there was also no other sounds besides his own breathing. For a second he entertained the thought that Sausage was now also something that could walk through walls, but the more acceptable thought – and what he preferred to be true – was he had come to his senses and left altogether to avoid being cursed again.

Allowing listlessness to take hold, Scott lifted his blindfold just enough to be able to more safely clean up the glass, then pulled it back into place once it was taken care of. He put away the remaining potions then returned to the bedroom, curling up on the bed and imagining that it still felt warm, that Sausage had not been gone for long.

He should have told him that he loved him one more time, or had the guts to say goodbye when he knew this was what could happen.

~*~

The next few days blended one into the other for Scott. He tried to do some upkeep around the villa, tried to make sure all the flowers in the garden patches were watered, tried to tend the animals. It was just things that had to be done. He considered letting the animals free to return to the fields, considered letting the gardens grow wild.

But what if Sausage returned and decided he wanted his home back?

Scott thought about returning to his vampire mansion, long since left to the elements after Sausage basically took him in while he regained his strength when he became an angel, and then it just seemed right to stay in Heaven’s Reach after that. As a compromise to himself, he went down to Wither’s Grasp and made the manor a little more livable since it had also been left to gather cobwebs. Boarded up windows were certainly suitable for whatever his new life alone was going to turn out to be.

He didn’t know yet what else he was going to do. Just wait, perhaps, and let nature take its course. One thought at the very back of his mind – something he didn’t dare call hope – was that Sausage, reborn hale and hearty, had left to find a better answer to the problem.

It occurred to Scott that he should write down everything he knew so far, since he had left that one book back at the stronghold, just in case Sausage did return, and there was the chance that one of them might become an Enigma again in the future. The project took up part of an afternoon, and he was leaving the manor to bring the book up to the villa when he heard footsteps crunching on the rocky dirt of the path. He quickly tugged at his blindfold to make sure he didn’t accidentally catch sight of them.

“Hello?” he called out, keeping his voice steady to avoid giving away his weakness. “Who’s there?”

“An old friend,” came a semblance of Sausage’s voice; something seemed off about it, not to mention that was a strange way to refer to himself. “Ssscott,” he then sounded out the other’s name as if it was an unfamiliar word. “Come with me. We have business to tend to.”

Before Scott could react, a hand closed on his arm and he was practically dragged across Wither’s Grasp, over the bridge, and partway up the stone staircase. “Saus—where are we going?”

“Back to the scene of the crime.”

That phrasing didn’t sit well with him, but he didn’t protest as he was encouraged to climb up into the cave that sat inside the wall, left just as it was on the night of the Blood Moon. Still holding onto the book, Scott was about to ask why they were there now, but hands turned him to make sure he was facing toward Sausage and then the blindfold was yanked off his head. “No-!” He started to cover his face with his arms but the glimpse he caught of who he thought was Sausage made him stop and stare in shock.

Green, translucent skin and pink hair greeted him, strange clear eyes staring back from what was definitely Sausage’s face. He was wearing the same clothes as the last time Scott had seen him, although they hung oddly on his frame and there was residue from gunpowder dirtying his shirt. Scott recovered from his shock and tried to block his line of sight again, but the alien version of Sausage stopped him. “No, don’t look away. This is important. Now, listen to me: Do you want to forget this ever happened? I can make him forget, and I can make you forget.”

“Make… him? So you’re… not Sausage? What are you?”

“Very long story. If you forget it won’t matter anyway. Let’s just say I needed to borrow him. No, keep looking at me. I still need you to end this.”

“Then…make sure we get this book. In case one of us comes back like me again.” Scott pointed with the book’s spine toward the bit of cobblestone wall where the black cloth was still laid out. Pseudo-Sausage nodded, and Scott backed up to place the book on it, glancing away only long enough to make sure it was properly on the wall and wouldn’t fall off. Then he said, “Forgetting won’t take away the guilt, you know.”

“That’s a matter for you. My business is vengeance. You can think of this situation as that. You’re knocking me loose, but I’ll avenge this mate of yours before I go.”

Understanding dawned on Scott. He suppressed a grateful smile and continued to hold his stare. The black mist appeared around pseudo-Sausage’s hands and feet, progressing even faster than before.

The alien looked down at his hands, holding one up to study the effect. “Hm, that will do. Next we just…” He took a small silver box from his pocket and fiddled with it. “Wait, that’s not… Right, got it.”

Scott watched curiously and leaned forward a little. A beam of bright red energy shot out of the front of the box, striking him in the chest. He dropped to the floor without a sound. The alien then sighed and placed the box on the ground by the cave’s entrance, then sat down next to Scott and waited.

~*~

When Sausage woke he first registered the sunlight streaming in from the front of the cave, and that was a relief. At least the night full of hordes of monsters was over. Next, however, came the feeling of the cave wall pressing in on him. His body felt oddly spread out, like his shoulders were too wide and his arms farther apart. He tried to move a little and nearly hit his head on close-hanging rock. Had there been some creeper around that collapsed a wall on him?

His gaze fell on a book sitting upon the black cloth where arrows and a potion had been, seeming far below his line of sight. That hadn’t been there before. He reached for it and—

Well, if he had been able to pick it up he probably wouldn’t have been able to turn the pages. His hand was gigantic in comparison. It wasn’t the cave that had changed. He had gotten bigger. But where was… “Ohgod. Scott? Scott??” The only thing stopping him from looking around in a panic was the threat of hitting his head again. “Please don’t tell me I crushed you…”

“Over here.” The voice had a strange quality to it, reminding him of endermen speech.

It took a moment because he was looking for a regular-sized person, but what he finally did see was a small (was it extra small because he was so big?) creature with purple crystalline horns coming out of its forehead, strangely shaped motes floating around pale yellow hair, and violet eyes that stared up at him. “Or down here, I guess I should say.”

“Oh, you’re tiny. That’s kind of cute.” Sausage giggled.

“And you’re stuck. I don’t know if you’ll fit through the way out even if you can crawl over there. Of all the places to turn into a giant,” Scott mused. “I’ll go get a pickaxe and try to get you out.”

“Wait, there’s a book here, it wasn’t in that bundle. I can’t, uh, pick it up.”

“All right, let me see.” The wall was just low enough for Scott to reach it. He started to flip through the book, wondering what relevance it had in the wake of them being shot by the terrifying skeletal archer. “This is…my handwriting. I don’t remember doing this.”

“What does it say?”

“Something about a creature called an Enigma. Huh… Oh! I put a little note at the end. …Oh.”

“That didn’t sound good.”

“That’s the thing that killed me when I was an angel.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t know why this was here, but I guess I found information or something? But I still don’t remember writing this.”

“Maybe… it’s the cave. Like you found the crossbow and stuff, and the first time I came in here I found stuff I could use as a wither. I didn’t question it before.”

“The cave has prescient abilities?”

“I don’t know. Weirder things have happened.”

Scott batted at one of the motes floating around his head, not that it really did anything to affect it. “Obviously. Well, give me a few minutes.” He scurried out of the cave and Sausage couldn’t contain another giggle while watching him. He then worked on maneuvering around to do the aforementioned crawling toward the cave’s entrance, earning a few scrapes in the process when trying to figure out where his limbs could fit. This was going to take some getting used to.

Scott returned and started work on expanding the sides of the entrance. Sausage noticed the extra pickaxe strapped to his back. “Why did you bring a gold one?”

“I don’t know. I just kind of wanted it.”

“Huh, so… where am I going to sleep now? I’m not going to fit in the house…”

~*~

As time went on the cycle just kept continuing for the two of them. An excessively packed TNT trap took out Sausage despite his extra resilience as a giant, although it was that resilience that shielded Scott from the blast. Yet before long, in a similar fashion, Scott was caught unaware by a creeper, which dealt immediate death due to his smaller, less hardy state.

They soon found themselves in a new unusual situation when Sausage became an owl and Scott a red panda. They made a nest inside a small forest cave as they adjusted to animalistic senses, although it didn’t last long anyway when a dire wolf found them.

Throughout it all they stayed together as best they could, while Sausage soon outpaced Scott in the count as he continued to be driven to protect him. A lengthy amount of peace came again when Scott found himself settling in as a floran, content to just tend gardens again while the very plants themselves grew upon him, giving him his own personal flower crown at all times. Meanwhile, the various pools and house pond came in handy again when Sausage had a turn at being a merling. Scott took out his old trident to give him tips on using it, and showed him the best spots for fishing in the river. There weren’t as many adventures anymore, and as Scott put it one time, “Now I don’t have to go far to get the flowers I want.”

Reminded of a particular flower-gathering disaster, Sausage was glad to agree.

~*~

Scott idly kicked his bare feet in the water of the deeper of the western ponds, smiling at a late afternoon butterfly that was investigating the flowers growing in his hair. Sausage had been napping at the bottom of the pond and was on his way up while Scott simply waited for him, a picnic dinner set out nearby and plans to watch the sunset ahead of them.

Surfacing near the middle, Sausage swam over and rested his webbed hands on the tops of Scott’s feet, which the floran lightly alternated again to create small ripples between them. Sausage smiled up at him then patted one of his knees before going to the side and hauling himself out. With water running down his face from his hair, he gave Scott a little kiss, then they moved to the picnic blanket to eat.

It was a perfect evening… up until the red of the sunset failed to fade from the sky. Sausage peered at the horizon, doublechecking the sun’s position. “Um… Not liking that. We should maybe get inside…”

“Too late.” Scott was already looking toward the villa. Creepers and spiders had begun to appear en masse, and a group of zombies was starting to head their way. Scott put his hands to the ground and after a scowl of concentration, twisting vines emerged from the grass in front of the undead, tangling around them as they shambled forward. He caught up a few creepers as well.

Sausage reached back into the pond where he had left the trusty trident leaning on the wall, having a habit of keeping it nearby at all times. “We’re getting to the river this time,” he insisted. Scott nodded and left the sentient vines to do their work without him, and together they ran for the waterfall. Unimpeded this time, they reached the fountain and slid down into the river below. After the brief plunge they both surfaced and assessed the threat collecting on the banks to either side. They began to swim underwater with the current, hoping it would speed them along a little faster, with Scott leaving a trail of petals as the flowers were pulled from his hair by each dive.

Sausage dealt with any Drowned they encountered, which for the moment were thankfully few. But skeletal archers on the banks were becoming wise to their presence, and the two had to start diving deeper to avoid the arrows, with the merling providing breaths of air when it became too dangerous to surface. They found respite when the river opened up toward the ocean, but colder depths weren’t very agreeable to a floran so they started to head back up and hoped to find a spot of land with the least number of mobs possible.

As much as Scott didn’t mind Sausage kissing him to give him air, he was glad for the next breath he took on his own as he reached the surface first, and one of the green tendrils in his hair poked at his ear as if to tell him they didn’t appreciate being submerged for that long. Scott brushed at it and looked around for a safe place to get out, starting to feel a little uneasy without soil beneath his feet. The nearby beach, however, was already crawling with zombies, and they were now beginning to funnel toward him, sinking as they hit the water only to start being converted into Drowned.

Sausage had been scouting from below and grimaced at the sight as he swam back upward, but he had located what he had been looking for. He surfaced and reached for Scott with his free hand. “I know you would really rather get back on land right about now, but there’s no safety at all there. I found a spot we can hide out in until daybreak, it’s just another little swim down. Come on, I’ve got you.” He offered a reassuring smile.

Scott brushed at the tendril by his ear again, then smiled back, trusting the merling. Together they dived back under and Sausage guided the way. A trench lined with exposed magma provided a natural barrier but crossing it was risky for the floran. Sausage wrapped his arms around him and used the trident to propel through the water across it as fast as he could, then continued swimming for a little ways through a crevice before letting him go and pointing upward.

Above was a small pocket of humid air within a section of the tiniest lush cave either of them had ever seen. The glowberry vines barely had any fruit but it was enough light to see by. Scott gratefully climbed up from the deepslate to sink his feet into the clay. It wasn’t dirt, but it was enough to sustain the dripleaf, the nearest of which he petted as it leaned toward him on its stalk. New flower buds began to form in his hair. Sausage watched with a smile. It was always fascinating to see that happen.

Something gurgled behind him. The smile fell from his face, stomach turning with dread. So much for being safe. He only had time to notice that the Drowned that had found them had a head like a wither skeleton before a smoky black trident was thrust into his chest, and then he was the one gurgling as he was pushed backward against the clay wall, his own trident falling from his hand.

“SAUSAGE!” Scott yelled. Acting fast, he caused scores of dripleaf to erupt from the ground and shoot up to the ceiling, cutting off the wither-Drowned. As he rushed over, glowberry vines descended upon Sausage, wrapping around his chest to stem the flow of blood from his wounds, although Scott worried how effective it would be if the accursed trident had pierced too deep. “Hold on, hold on, Sausage, I’ll – I’ll think of something, okay?” He clasped the merling’s face between his hands, hoping to get him to focus on him. Sausage smiled weakly but there was already blood seeping out between the vines.

And then the withering took effect. With nothing to counteract it, at that point Scott could do little more than hold Sausage’s hand until the merling’s grip grew slack. As unfortunate as it seemed, it was now something they had grown accustomed to. Scott cradled him in his arms, leaving the vines in place to keep the wounds covered until Sausage regenerated with the change to a new form.

With no other indication of the hour, he relied on the progression of the original meager vines on the cave ceiling to mark time. Slowly but steadily they grew downward, and occasionally a new cluster of berries blinked into existence, adding a little more light. But after a while Scott decided it was a terrible way to keep track of time, because it seemed to be taking too long.

“Sausage, come back to me, please. Y-You can’t just leave me in here, okay?” He tried to laugh. “This was your idea. You know, it’s kind of silly, putting ourselves in a dead end like this with no plan for a way back if you can’t swim us out.” He leaned his head over his face, teardrops falling onto Sausage’s cheeks. “I’m sorry I said that. It wasn’t silly. It was a good idea. I should have blocked the way behind us sooner, just as a precaution. I’m sorry I keep relying on you to protect us. Y-You’re going to come back, right? You have to. …Sausage?”

He stroked his hair then slipped a hand under the vines to check for a heartbeat. “L-Listen, Sausage, I can get us out, don’t worry about that part. I can get roots to dig through even the stone and we won’t have to worry about the swimming part no matter what you are. But you’ve got to come back first. Okay?”

Scott gently laid him against the clay wall so he could climb a little higher and touch the ceiling to start summoning the roots as promised. If the unthinkable happened, he still needed a way out…  He then sank to his knees and looked at his hands, feeling helpless. “W-What am I supposed to do if you don’t come back? Sausage…tell me?”

New light suddenly blazed into view, but it wasn’t the soft orange of a glowberry. It was silvery and bright, and it came from between the vines around Sausage’s chest. Scott uttered a gasp of relief and hurried back down toward where he lay. The light spread, engulfing Sausage’s body as he was finally revived. The vines fell away, and before the glow even faded his silhouette alone stopped Scott in his tracks. The former merling didn’t move right away and so he couldn’t help crying out, “Sausage! Sausage! Please, wake up!”

On Sausage’s part, he was a little disoriented by the light but as it dimmed he could see the new, full blooms in Scott’s hair and thought to himself that this was good, because it meant the floran was unharmed. But he himself felt like he was on fire. “Urg…my head…is buzzing. Am I a thunderborn again?”

Scott answered with a voice full of awe, “No…No, you absolutely are not.”

Sausage shifted to sit up and felt a weight on his back. A familiar one, and… in three different places. The fire actually seemed to be focused behind his head. He stood up and like he had as a giant felt like he was towering over Scott, but it was only an illusion because of the power thrumming through his body.

“A-Angel,” Scott stammered. “…My…angel.”

Holy power was what he felt, stronger than ever before. Sausage looked around at himself, folding one set of wings forward so he could look at them. This time his feathers were white with silver edges, a barely perceptible pattern along the tips. There were three pairs of wings altogether; he wasn’t just any old angel this time. The memory of hierarchies and titles came to his mind. The fire at the back of his head was his halo, and its light was shining on Scott’s face like the sun. When he held out a hand toward the floran, Scott reached for him in turn and a vine coiled out along his arm, splitting into multiple leaves and a small sunflower that all turned upward toward the seraph’s face.

Sausage offered a quiet laugh and made an effort to consciously dim his aura. The vine withdrew and the sunflower popped up in Scott’s hair amongst the others. “Well, I think I can safely say that with this much power, nothing is going to hurt you ever again.”

Scott gave a laugh of his own. “So, you’re now the guardian angel you’ve always wanted to be. I would say you’ve earned it, and… everything might have been worth it.”

Sausage grinned at that, and pulled him closer to wrap him in his larger pair of wings for a hug. “We’ll wait here a little longer. I’m not that eager to test out my smiting abilities yet.”

As he leaned in for a kiss, the other flowers in Scott’s hair fell off and were replaced by a new crown made up of more small sunflowers.

 ~To be continued in Then We’ll Rewrite the Stars~