And Night With Different Stars

by shadowsinfire

Early series: you can't really realise what "different worlds" means until you experience them yourself: in this place, Syaoran cannot recognise the stars.

June 16 - and night with different stars

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In the Hanshin Republic light pollution overwhelms all but the brightest stars. It's not a problem Syaoran's encountered before; in the desert light it limited to a few lanterns, torches and the strange luminous rock of the ruins, and all of those can be escaped with only a little difficulty.

From this roof electric lights glow and burn away paler lights. He stays anyway, watching the occasional cloud pass by the moon.

In Koryo there is no light pollution, and although Syaoran ends up watching the stars from the roof of Chun Hyang's house, after only a few seconds he closes his eyes against a dreadful feeling of vertigo.

He doesn't recognise them. He cannot find the arrow, the heron, the sword, the beetle or the boatman, only the boatman's river, cutting an arc across the sky. The patterns are so utterly foreign, so different, that for the first time he really realises what 'different worlds' means.

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