#starmakers

With a sigh that seemed to be snatched from him by the wind, he pushed forward towards his little area of the sky. Without using his wings he found himself working a little harder to get there but with persistence he was soon back amongst his work from the previous night. He reached into his robes and pulled his paint brushes free, reaching into another hidden pocket for his ink pot. He had already positioned the two larger stars, a product of a collaboration of himself and one of the less irritating Builders. He held the smallest star in both of his hands and looked at it carefully, studying it for any faults. The little star glowed in his cupped hands, the light casting off of it coming as a white tinted with a warm hue. It reminded him, inexplicably of his little angel from the refectory. Small and unassuming, but so bright. He swallowed down a strong feeling that threatened to bubble up inside of him, and instead blew gently on his cupped hands, encouraging the star to flare a little brighter. 

“Glow better,” he muttered as he reached out and positioned it to complete the triplet star. 

There wasn’t a blue print to be followed out here in the surrounding skies; he and the other Starmakers had simply been sent to make the heavens as pretty as possible, a vast pleasing light show for whatever She was planning next. Everything was meant to be seen from the lump of dirt nearby. He wasn’t sure, thinking back to the colourful animals in the murals, if any of those dull looking beasts would really appreciate the work they were doing up here. Regardless, he was here to do his duty, and his duty was to paint. He loosened the cap of his ink pot, licked the end of his brush to make it smooth, and began to paint. 

The sounding of a celestial horn signalled the end of the Dusk to Dawn shift, along with a purple faint glow that made it harder to see the nebula he was painstakingly stippling. The time had gone quickly, and he put away his tools, sighing critically at his ink stained hands. He held back from the rest of the Starmakers as they made their way back towards the staircases downstairs, doing his best to ignore the way they called out to each other cheerily. Moving back from the colourful nebula he had been working on, he looked out to take it the entire dome they had been tasked with. It seemed endless, but slowly the dull blacks and greys were being filled in with patchworked areas of deep blue and violet, speckled with stars and planets and asteroids. There were colours hidden amongst them, a flash of brilliant green here or a glow of acidic yellow there. It was peaceful even with the riot of colour. 

“Oi, Crowley! Paradise waits for no angel!”

Crowley heard a voice call out, and frowned before turning to look. One of his unit, someone he didn’t remember the name of even after many decades, was staring back at him from the staircase with a look of bemused irritation. He gathered up his tools and thrust them into pockets as he pushed himself through the wind towards the staircase. He avoided the angel’s eyes even as he got closer, frowning to himself. 

“Why don’t you just use your wings?” asked the angel, and his voice made Crowley’s mood sour even more. He shrugged in lieu of giving an answer. The angel in front of him made an exasperated noise.“Whatever,”

Crowley waited a minute after the angel went down the staircase, wanting to keep some distance between them before following him down back into Paradise. 

There was no point staying in the hall once they came out into its broad space again. He wasn’t hungry for bread or honey, he didn’t want to sit with the rest of his unit while they talked and he didn’t want to simply go back to his room and wait the hours before the day started again. Very soon the Dawn to Day angels would fill the hall on their way to their work, the Lighters in their red robes who always seemed to talk the loudest, laugh the longest. The Cloudmakers weren’t so bad, even if Crowley didn’t care for their pink robes. They painted some beautiful sunrises to go along with that burning gigantic star the Lighters seemed to think was really the best thing ever created. Of course they would, they’re the ones who made it. 

Instead of doing any of unappealing options open to him Crowley slipped away through one of the doors on the far end of the hallway. This part of Paradise would be quiet during this shift, the Growers wouldn’t be coming into the green houses until after the third bell chimed.

He pushed open the heavy glass door carefully as to not let it squeak in protest as its hinges grated on each other. Moving into the humidity of the greenhouse was a world away from the cold sky he was used to. In here it was crowded with life, and Crowley walked deeper into the bustling space. Lush green plants burst from every surface, hanging from the ceiling, trailing vines along the brightly lit glass walls, reaching for him as he slipped further into the green maze. 

His fingers reached out and trailed along a row of ferns curling to greet him. He cursed under his breath, seeing the ink stains on his hand pass through his fingers onto the fern and colour the centre stem a deep purple. Looking at his hands he found them seeped in deep purple and blue still, swirling with glittering light that etched into every crease. 

Moving through the layers of green life he found himself in an area filled with beautiful and small creations, dozens of what he had heard described as ‘flowers’. They numbered in the thousands, and not even in his colourful work station upstairs had ever seen such a variety of colour and vibrancy. He moved along rows of gigantic yellow and brown disc shaped flowers that seemed to follow him as he moved, stopping to trace the smell of a  series of deep crimson curled buds with thorns tucked under their leaves. There were bushes of dozens of tiny pink blooms all crowded together on each stem, and unusual looking spiky red leaves that slotted together like a spear. Tousled haphazard petals that started one colour and ended in a brilliant blue. Everywhere he looked there was a new creation to see and he was greedy, wanting to see them all. 

He stopped when he reached a row of flowers that seemed to stand out to him for the wrong reasons. Somehow, in this lush green landscape populated with endless colour, these pure white flowers seemed wrong. Maybe it was the startling lack of colour compared to the banquet he had taken in, or maybe it was the shape the petals suggested as they fanned out. They looked like angels in white robes with their white wings spread wide, rising up from the stem in a defiant manner. 

Whatever it was about them, he didn’t like it. He didn’t enjoy the feeling that swirled in the pit of his stomach looking at this stark white flower - not even a beautiful cream that he could relate to the little Keeper and his curls. No, just cold, lifeless white. 

Frowning he reached for the flower closest to him and pinched it. Rubbing his thumb down the middle of the petal he left a wide stripe of gleaming purple stardust. It shimmered lightly on the petal before sinking in and spreading like ink along the lines of the flower. He repeated the motion on the remaining petals. And then again, on another flower head. And again on another. He kept going until his hands were free of ink and every white flower was printed with his glittering purple fingerprints. 

Standing back he smiled. 

“Better,” he muttered. “Keep it up,”

The flowers shivered in agreement, the petals spreading in appreciation of their new colours. Crowley felt a ghost of a smile creep across his face. It didn’t occur to him that whoever had spent their time carefully crafting these flowers might have something to say about his messy fingerprints all over them, but even if it had he wouldn’t have cared much - this was definitely an improvement, even if an unplanned one.