stelle brings back a lot of things to the express after a trailblaze mission. this is not new. her room is a veritable stockpile of souvenirs, trinkets, and doodads from all over the cosmos. so it's easy to miss when she hides something for a certain someone's birthday. she'd been working on it a long time, even roping in the help of march, himeko and welt at the last minute to get it done on time. now, she presents the carefully decorated jar. inside is hundreds of tiny, folded paper stars in an array of bright colours. she'd heard doing so was a symbol of well wishes and good fortune to loved ones on some planets, so naturally she'd had to try and make them for dan heng. after everything they'd been through, it felt like the perfect gift. ❝ i know you don't like to make a big deal about your birthday, but... here. may all your dreams and wishes come true, dan heng. ❞
@starblazes.
much of dan heng’s time on the express had been spent proving that he deserved a place there. even if, at the beginning of his time there, he’d thought the arrangement would be a temporary stay on his path of exile. the title of train guard had been for utilising the only skill he believed to be good at ; combat, and then archivist ; the only skill that utilised his chronic need to sort, organise, and repair things. such extended efforts he’d believed to be a given, to earn his place here amidst his peers, to deserve their company and acceptance. his line of thinking had not changed until stelle had been brought aboard, until he had been forced alongside her to face their truths of their existence, and the origins of their “ otherness ” and feigned humanities.
today stelle’s gift represented the antithesis to dan heng’s original line of thought. that something could come into being without concrete use, or purpose. that the decorative little stars could exist, and not serve a higher function. it was fine to simply be, and dream. but mostly that dan heng had been worth this effort. that this gift could not in turn make dan heng more useful to their cause, but stelle and whoever aided her still saw it fit to celebrate dan heng’s existence. the effort, the time, the meaning of the tiny paper stars meant so much more than what he could convey in the words.
still, he tried anyway, voice soft and gentle but steady all the same as he clutched the gift closer.
“ thank you, stelle. ”
birthday asks !
