The Passage of Stars, an attack on titan/進撃の巨人 fanfic

A/N: So this is based on the tale of the weaver and the cowherd (niu lang zhi nu) from Chinese mythology, but there are so many variations of this tale that I just took parts of different ones and made up my own thing. I took major liberties with this, such as the fact that Levi is not a cowherd, because I can't actually see him herding cows? Therefore no cowhide cloak and—eh whatever in short this fic just takes the basic premise of that tale and then totally screws it around. Hope the result is somewhat readable anyway.

Warning: this has not been edited yet. I'm too busy recently to spend time carefully going through a 15k word fic. I apologize for any errors and awkward diction; do let me know if you spot anything. Also ffnet has a habit of screwing around with the format of italics and yeah.

There is a little pond in the celestial gardens, just a small clear pool amidst the lush foliage and vibrant flowers, a pool of still water easily overlooked in favor of bigger, brighter wonders.

Petra visits it every day.

When her fingers tire and her mind begins to numb she covers her loom and wanders down to the gardens, taking care to avoid her sisters along the way. She seeks out this little pond, ducks beneath the shade of the willow trees next to it, and sits down to stare out into the water.

That is the nature of Heaven: it is full of endless wonders and infinite delights; there is beauty to be found in even the smallest things, the patterns and swirls in the bark of every tree, the verdant green of every blade of grass. It is forever peaceful, the rowdiest moments her sisters' little squabbles, and a human could spend the rest of his lifetime trying to explore the grounds.

The pool of still water is the only thing that is bland, boring even, and through this pool she can see down to Earth if she tries hard enough.

There are only faint glimpses she is lucky to catch on occasion: a flash of dirt, a spot of straw, sometimes a scene of a crowded marketplace or rolling pastures, a shepherd tending his flock in the background. These things pass through very rarely, but Petra cherishes each one like a man might cherish a gold nugget.

She knows she should be grateful, to have been born the seventh daughter of the Jade Emperor, a goddess of Heaven and blessed with eternal life in paradise, but she cannot deny that she is bored. She has been all over the celestial palace and the lands surrounding it, the gardens and the forests behind and the sprawling plains beyond. She has made her way through gilded hall after gilded hall, admired the intricate designs carved into the walls of every structure, brushed her fingers along every stone and root and delicate budding flower.

Everything is quiet, an atmosphere of peace and serenity pervading all of Heaven, and when she is not weaving, there is nothing else to do, nothing she has not done before.

So she sits by the little overlooked pond every day, peering into the clear, still water, and every day she hopes to see something new.

On the seventh day of the seventh month, she sees a face.

It is not much more than the briefest flash of skin, a pale cheek and nose, a hint of blue-gray eyes, but long after the image disappears she continues to stare after it. She has never seen people up close before: the pictures of life on Earth that filter through are always of something on a grander scale.

She stands, moving out from the quiet shade into the sun. The light is dazzling here; radiance gleams off every satin petal, every golden brick, and the colors reflect off the surface of the pool, shining into her eyes. The waters ripple and shift, and she kneels by the edge of the small circular well in the ground, peering in more closely.

Nothing. It is merely a pond again.

Sighing, Petra sits back and contemplates the rest of her day. Her loom is still uncovered in her room, rolls and sheets of silks spilling across her bed, iridescent purples and blues that put the sky to shame, deep reds and shades of gold reminiscent of the sun. She is weaving a scarf for herself, a scarf to match the cloak she finished last week (or perhaps it was last month; time is a variable thing in Heaven). One of her sisters, the goddess of rain, told her there would not be much for a few days so there is no need to spin new cloud patterns above Earth; she has left them alone for a while.

She is about to stand, resigning herself to another night at her loom, when something sparkles in the pool again.

Leaning over, she spots a little clearing: a trickling stream winding through, rocks and soil dark with water, green grass and tall trees, branches heavy with the bloom of mid-summer. It is nothing special, certainly nothing to be compared with the beauty of her home, but suddenly a deep yearning aches in her chest and before she thinks about what she is doing, her fingers reach down and slip into the pool.

The coolness of the water sends a shock through her arm: it has been a long time since she felt something so uncomfortable. But no, it is more than that—it is tugging on her hand, not letting go, and she feels something flip in her stomach as she is pulled forward—

Petra falls.

Everything is black as night, rushing past her ears, up her nose, into her eyes. She claws blindly for a handhold, her feet searching for purchase amidst the darkness, but there is nothing to steady her; she cannot remember the last time she felt so helpless. It is like she is being squeezed through a tube, plunged through time and space, and after a moment, she closes her eyes and lets the feeling overtake her.

When she opens her eyes, she is in the clearing.

She scrambles back, then up, and finds herself on the bank of the stream. The bottom half of her dress is soaked and her cloak has slid down her shoulders into the water; when she pulls it out, it is sopping wet.

That is when she knows exactly where she is.

Nothing happens in Heaven that she does not allow—if she does not want her cloak to be wet, it will not be wet. She holds it up, looking at the brightness of the colors, undiminished by the water dripping from its fabric, and allows herself to laugh.

She is not allowed to leave her father's palace; only her father's messengers are. The Jade Emperor's daughters are confined to the sanctuary of the palace grounds, held in a towering gold-and-marble prison to do their duties to the Earth as other deities, spirits, and fairies roam the lands below freely. The goddesses of nature have never been given access to the entryways down to Earth.

"It is for your safety," her father has said many times, and she always believed him.

But now she is here, on Earth, and other than the dullness of its colors, she does not see anything so bad or different about it. She sets her cloak on the ground by the little river and spreads it open to dry; she takes off her shoes and holds them in her hand, stepping back into the stream to allow the water to trickle through her toes; she raises her head and looks around in awe at the tallness of the trees, the dirt browns and moss greens of the plants and bushes and forest around her, the pale dappled sunlight filtering down from above.

She is about to pick up her cloak and follow the path out of the clearing when she hears voices.

They are closer than she expects; one moment there is silence, the next the low hum of people speaking beyond a copse nearby. Petra freezes for a moment, then darts back across the clearing in the opposite direction, ducking between two trees and crouching down by the tangled juncture of their roots.

"… don't need to…"

"… got you good, Levi, you'd better…"

"You're both ridiculous."

The words grow audible, then closer, and without a doubt she knows there are at least two others in the clearing—both male, judging from the low tones of their voices. A third voice speaks, lighter and higher-pitched—a girl.

"We're not wasting the drinking water on you. Go on—hey, what's this?"

Petra resists the urge to sit up, to look at the speakers—she has never seen a human being before. They are all different yet all alike, just like she and her sisters and her father and all the other deities in Heaven, but she is still curious.

Then she realizes they must have discovered her cloak.

"Looks fancy," the first man says. "Who'd forget this?"

"Keep it," the second suggests. "It looks like good material. Maybe we could sell it."

"Sounds good to me," the girl says cheerily. "In you go"—and then there is a splash, a shout, and a whole lot of cursing.

Petra remains unmoving until the air is warmer, the sun fierce against her hair, shining down from above to heat her skin, and the people have gone. It must be noon; it was mid-afternoon in Heaven, but time is different here.

She emerges from her hiding spot and blinks in dismay. She expected it, but the sight of the empty patch of ground where her cloak was makes her throat tighten. Because suddenly, she remembers something she overheard her father say to one of the new palace guards, months or perhaps years ago: "Never leave anything behind when you return."

She needs to get her cloak back.

After wandering through the woods for what feels like hours but is probably only less than one, following the twisting path and avoiding overgrown bushes and low branches blocking her way, she finds herself at the edge of a city.

She can see the spires of the palace rising in the distance, the sloping golden roofs and the great azure gates. Thick high walls surround the royal residence, but far below those are teeming masses of people and buildings, and then her line of vision disappears into the dirt roads leading into the city.

She walks and walks and walks, and her feet are never tired but now they are, sore and dusty and stiff. Her shoes and dress have long dried, and she focuses on her surroundings, studying the landscape of the small houses and pastures that get more and more crowded the further she travels.

At first there is only the occasional house, slanted and wooden with a curved roof, and fenced-in plains beyond where cows and sheep graze. Then the houses grow closer together and the grass becomes sparser; soon there are others on the path with her, some giving her curious glances but never approaching, and then the rows of houses swell out into wide open streets.

She discovers the first marketplace soon enough. A row of colored lanterns swinging from one side of the street to the other marks the entrance. Stalls begin to crowd the length of every road, men and women offering everything from exquisite hand-crafted fans to dog meat to palm reading. Her pace slows, then stops entirely, and she allows herself to stand and stare at all the people.

So many people—she has never seen so many before in one place. Her father's banquets in the Grand Hall of his palace never consist of anyone besides him, her sisters, and a few chosen others. Guards always lined every entrance, golden mail gleaming and staffs arrayed in impeccable rows, and she always did wonder what they were guarding against.

She has never seen such young children, or such old people—there are mischievous spirits who take the shape of children, but never infants so young they have to be carried across their mothers' backs, and she did not know the human face could wrinkle like that, or hair be so white. She turns around and around, trying to take it all in.

When she finally stumbles out of the crowded areas, she realizes there are far more people than she expected in this one city. How long will she have to spend searching for the voices that took her cloak?

Time passes almost as if in a dream, what Petra imagines a dream would be if she ever dreamt. She wanders down street after street, passing open yards filled with children and restaurants full of patrons and shops where customers wait in the street outside. She stares openly, wandering between homes and markets, schools and businesses, and some stare back but none speak to her.

She decides she loves the hustle and bustle of the earth's inhabitants, humans rushing from one place to another, calling out and laughing and crying and shouting. She loves the cacophony of the marketplace, vendors hawking their wares and mothers tugging children along, oxen pulling carts as farmers bring their produce into the city to sell and scribes from the palace set up stalls by the side of the street. She loves the dull shades of the peasants' tunics and straw hats, the sheer wall of noise as people fight to be heard over one another, the smell of steamed buns and spices and incense filling the air.

It is nothing like the tranquil peace of her father's palace, the celestial stillness of the gardens or the quiet atmosphere of the fairies' forests. It is that ripple in the pond, her one window down to earth, multiplied over a thousand times, surrounding her, drowning her in it, but she does not want to learn how to swim.

She is so caught up in how vastly immense the world is that she does not notice she is in the middle of the street until someone snarls in her ear, "Hey!"

With a vicious yank on her sleeve she is jerked into the crowd, and she blinks dazedly as a cart thunders past inches from her face. She turns, her heart thumping in her throat, and opens her mouth to thank her would-be savior but he cuts her off.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, standing in the middle of the street? Is this your first time in the city? You need to be more careful," the man before her snaps.

She does not hear his words; she only notices two things: his voice is the first she heard in the clearing, and his face is the one she saw in the pool in the gardens. You took something of mine, she nearly blurts, but then she stops and looks at him, really looks at him.

He is short for a man, she understands; she barely has to raise her eyes to meet his gaze. His hair is dark and cropped short in the back the way all men on earth seem to wear it, his eyes fierce and mouth twisted in an unfriendly slant. He wears a black tunic belted at the waist with a black sash and loose pants, and his shoes look worn and dusty. She finds herself staring at the taut muscles straining in his bare arms and she glances back at his face quickly, wondering why hers suddenly feels hot. All the men she has seen up close before wear chainmail that covers everything, and a visor that blocks all parts of the face but the eyes.

He is not just a man, she has to remind herself, he is human, and that is precisely why she cannot trust him. The earth is full of wonders, but she must not let those wonders make her forget all the stories about the people who inhabit it: the good and the bad. This man would have saved her life, were she able to die from something so mundane as a ox-drawn cart, so he must not be bad, but she knows nothing about him and cannot determine if he is good just yet.

So instead of asking for the whereabouts of her cloak, she smiles instead, as brightly as she can. "Thank you."

He blinks, and too late she realizes her mistake: You are my daughters, her father said once, the immortal goddesses of Heaven. No human can look upon your smile. She instantly starts to draw her lips into a frown, but before her face can fully take on the expression, he blinks again and the moment passes. "Just be careful," he mutters, and turns to slip away into the crowd.

Panic seizes her in a tight grip; he will disappear amidst the throngs of people and she will never see him, her cloak, or Heaven again. She needs a way to find him. "Excuse me!" she calls after him. "What is your name?"

He regards her suspiciously from seven paces away and she is struck with the feeling she ought to know already; his was the face she saw in the pool, after all. She can tell from the way he studies her that he is debating if he should tell her, but at last he says, "Levi."

Levi. She will remember that. He is still looking at her, and she remembers that humans do not give names; they exchange them. "I'm Petra," she says, and offers a small smile.

"Petra." His tone is neutral, but the sound of her name is oddly thrilling in his low voice. The only other man she has heard say her name is her father. "Like the seventh daughter of the Jade Emperor, the goddess of the clouds?"

"Yes," Petra says, her smile widening. "Just like that."

As the sun sinks lower in the sky, spreading swaths of purple and red across the horizon, the stars begin to come out.

Standing in the streets of the city on Earth, she watches the stars twinkle and gleam, bright ever-shifting points in the fading sunlight. If she looks hard enough, she can almost see her father's palace nestled in the clouds, the cold white brilliance of the stars sinking into the foundations of the buildings, the streaks of darker night the roads that lead her there.

Her sister Historia watches over the stars; tonight there are no friendly ones beckoning her home. Petra turns away to seek her own shelter.

She has been walking all day and she is aware she must be an uncommon sight. In the midst of people going about their day-to-day life she wanders around, without a goal or destination. Most have dark hair, some lighter, but none so conspicuous as hers, and while her simple dress does not scream wealth, there is no denying the shiny quality of the fabric or the richness of the color. Even though her shoes are scuffed from all the walking and the edges of her skirt are ripped from catching on various items, she still does not look like a commoner.

And now nighttime is approaching; that is when the dangers come out. People are preparing for the night: men and women wheel their carts and stalls back to the yards of their homes and lock up; boys run across squares climbing poles and lighting lanterns; the traffic on the streets is lessening and shadowed figures creep out of alleyways, the homeless and the poor rifling through overflowing garbage bins for their next meal. The friendly warmth of the marketplace is gone, replaced by a city ready to sleep, and only those with things to hide come out in the dark.

Petra has been exploring all day; she perused cart after cart of golden jewelry and jade pendants, sifted through hundreds of silks, passed more stands of food and drinks than she can count. She tried many samples, small portions of cabbage wrapped in steamed white bread and squares of honey cake, little round plums steeped in black tea and sips of hot almond soup, but she still feels empty, an unfamiliar ache resting in her stomach, and she decides it must be hunger.

She cannot buy food without coins, though, and she will not steal. As the crowds dwindle and disperse, she continues her path down winding streets and twisting alleyways, sticking to the light, and when she sees a large amount of it spilling out of one establishment, she makes her way there.

The little building reeks of sweat and something strong, something tangy, and she breathes it in deeply before realizing it is alcohol. It is nothing like the wine served at her father's banquets; it is unpleasant and sharp and burns in her nose.

The common room inside the building is full of men sitting at tables, at the counter, cups in their hands, but even though they are all talking, the loudest sounds come from below. The chatter of the patrons nearly drown out the din, but she can feel the vibrations in the floorboards, the little tremors shaking the wood, and when the man standing behind the counter opens his mouth—likely to ask her what she is doing there or what she wants—she says, drawn by a sudden inexplicable curiosity, "Take me down there."

Perhaps it is not his business to question customers; perhaps she unknowingly gave a signal. Whatever the reason, the man gestures someone else over to accompany her towards the source of the commotion.

A serving girl approaches and beckons her to follow. The girl ducks through the lines of men, expertly avoiding several grasping hands, and leads them to a small doorway tucked into the crook of the wall between the far end of the room and the staircase leading to rooms above.

"I never seen you here before," the girl says as she opens the door. The sound is louder here, a clamor of voices shouting and cheering and booing, and it echoes up from the winding stone staircase. Faint light spills from below, illuminating the steps.

"This is my first time here," Petra says, not sure if they are referring to the same thing.

"We don't usually get your like." The girl eyes her as they make their way down. The sound only gets louder, reverberating off the walls, finding its way through little cracks in the stones.

"My like?"

The girl snorts. "If women are here, they're usually dressed in rags and hanging off some man's arm, you know?"

"Yes," Petra says. No, but there is no point in letting anyone realize how little she actually knows.

They reach the bottom of the stairwell; a narrow stone hallway leads to another wooden door set in the wall at the end. "Over there," the girl says, pointing. "Knock and say you're here for the short one. Auruo's guarding today; he's a fan of the short one."

Petra does as suggested; she can barely hear her own knock through the commotion behind the door, so she is surprised when it opens a crack and an eye peers out at her. "I'm… here for the short one," she says, trying not to sound dubious.

"Your money's on the right man!" is the instant response—and the door swings open.

She has barely made her way through before it is shut behind her again; looking up, she sees the guard, a young man with pale hair dressed in a loose tunic and pants, what every man on Earth seems to wear, though his is the color of sand. His arms are bare as well, his face uncovered, and he is the very opposite of what she expects a guard to look like.

But then another roar of excitement draws her back to the rest of the room: it is filled with people, a large crowd of mostly men, some women, their attention all drawn to a roped-off area in the center. Petra cannot tell what is going on, but she hears loud thuds through the raised voices.

"Need a lift?" the guard—Auruo, the serving girl said his name was—asks. He is grinning. "You're a short one too." And before she can decide if she is amused or offended, he hoists her onto his shoulders.

She should be angry that someone dares touch her, especially without her permission, but she can tell he means no harm, and now she is able to see what has captured everyone's attention, drawn so many people to the large chamber below the tavern above.

Coils of rope are looped around poles staked into the ground every few meters, tied off with colored knots. Steps inside lead up to a raised platform, gray and spotted with rust, but she sees the way the color flakes and realizes with an uncomfortable clench in her stomach that it must not be rust, but dried blood.

Two men stand inside the makeshift ring, both shirtless, knees bent and hands curled into fists. One is tall, with dark red hair and a mouth wet with blood, a bruise forming on the side of his jaw. The other is much shorter, hair dark and cropped short, skin pale and untouched, his bare chest glistening with sweat under the flickering lamps. He turns his head slightly as he takes a step forward, and Petra suddenly recognizes him.

The fight is over almost as quickly as it seems to have begun; the taller man swings again first, but Levi ducks under his fist easily and jabs him in the side. Bodies collide and people shout and cheer, but Petra hardly hears them. Thoughts buzz like confused flies in her mind, and by the time a winner is pronounced, she has made a decision.

"You alright?" The guard, Auruo, has lowered her again, and she slips to the ground with a start. He squints at her. "Was this your first fight?"

"Yes," she says. She blinks, and smiles, and quickly frowns when she sees him look stunned for a moment. "Thank you. Excuse me…"

The red-haired man is dragged off stage, groaning, and two others step into the ring. Petra edges her way around the crowd, dodging elbows and flailing limbs, squeezing through tight spaces, searching for the route the other fighter must have taken out of the ring.

She finds him beyond the crowd, behind a curtained-off area to the far side of the room. Separate doors lead to what must be changing rooms, but he sits on a bench outside, legs extended in front of him, arms crossed, head tilted back and eyes closed. Up close, she can see the scars that were not visible from far away: crisscrossing lines and curves that mark his skin, pale bruises purple and almost golden in the dim light, a few unhealed cuts. She opens her mouth, but he beats her to it.

"What do you want?"

He sound tired, vaguely irritated; she stifles the first words that come to mind. Instead she says, "Do only fighters wear black?"

His eyes snap open. He studies her, face expressionless, but something like defeat flickers in his blue-gray irises. "What do you want?" he repeats.

He recognizes her; it is obvious. His tone is flat, his gaze unfriendly, but she thinks she knows what she must be to him: a silly girl from another city who did not watch where she was going in the streets, someone with wealth and status and lovely silken clothing who must look down on people like him. She must be disgusted that the man who saved her life turned out to be someone who fights for money.

She smiles as widely as she can; he didn't seem affected the first time, after all. "Can you teach me how to fight?"

She spends her first night on Earth in a storage shed.

"I've stayed here before," Levi says gruffly as he shoves a pile of rough woolen sheets in her arms. "No one will bother you."

He didn't believe her at first when she said she wanted to learn his skills, but he did believe her when she said she traveled to the city alone and was robbed of all her money and possessions. He didn't say it, but she could guess what he was thinking—a girl like her, standing in the middle of the street waiting for carts to hit her; of course she was robbed.

"I'll show you basic self-defense," he finally said. "I don't teach."

But it was still an agreement, and then there was the matter of where she could stay. Levi admitted he had a place, but he shared it with two others and never gave its location out of what he claimed as "justified paranoia," and in the end he led her to a small abandoned shack not far from the underground arena he fought in. "It gets cold at night," he said, hence the blankets, "but it's fine during the summer."

It is the height of the warm season; it is the seventh day of the seventh month on Earth too. Every so often the days collide; time passes much more quickly down here.

He leaves her in the silence of the shed with the sheets, but not before pressing a sack into her hand. When he is gone, she opens it to find five wrapped buns, a small skin of water, two folded sets of plain clothing, and a handful of coins—some of them gold. With a start, she remembers seeing him tuck a few, a tiny portion of his winnings, in his pocket when they left the arena. She doesn't know him, only knows that his name is Levi and he fights for others' entertainment, that she saw his face from the pool in her father's gardens and that he has her cloak, but she also knows he is not the sort to give charity. The food she can understand, perhaps the clothing, but not the money.

Despite her new conditions, it is not the hard wood of the floor or the cold of the night air leaking in through the planks or the shattering of glass and loud voices outside that steals her rest; when she finally falls asleep, she is still wondering why he is helping her, and what he wants in return.

Out of what must be sheer luck, she finds a new place to stay the very next day.

She is wandering the streets in her new outfit, a loose shirt and skirt both the color of clay, the material plain but soft against her skin, holding a few copper coins in her palms. The others are tucked beneath a floorboard in the shed, and she long devoured the food.

It is chance that she passes the woman at the time she does; she would not have turned back down the street were it not for a change of mind. As she makes her way back to the small shop that smells of warm broth, she hears one woman on the side of the street complaining to another.

"—and there hasn't been a decent girl in months; ever since the first one quit, every one after has just been terrible with a needle compared to her."

"What about the last one?"

"She just moved out yesterday—good riddance, I say; I was paying her and spending more on her than she makes me. But new orders just came in last night; I can't sew everything by myself."

Petra turns to them, all thoughts of hunger forgotten. When they sense her staring, they look at her.

"What is it, child?" the woman complaining about her last worker asks in a kinder tone of voice.

"I can sew well," Petra blurts.

Two hours and a couple of mended shirts later, she has a job.

She returns to the storage shed to find Levi waiting for her, wearing the same black tunic he did yesterday. It is something she has quickly noticed about the inhabitants of the earth; other than extra stitches along some hems and detailed patterns adorning collars, most of their clothing is the same, all except the color. She has seen plenty of tan, umber, brown, some green and fewer blue; red and purple and other such colors must be reserved for the nobility. Then there is Levi in his black; a few of the other fighters were in black too.

"I found a job," she says immediately when she sees him. He is standing in one corner of the shed when he enters, and he raises an eyebrow at her proclamation.

"Doing what?"

"Helping a seamstress. I can live in a room above her shop too." She kneels and uncovers the loose floorboard, where she retrieves the rest of the coins. "I'm very good at sewing and weaving." She stands and cocks her head at him when he does not say anything; she must be imagining the odd look in his eyes. "Thank you for the money; I will pay you back after I begin working."

"Don't bother," he says. "It's nothing."

She opens her mouth to protest, then remembers that she wants to be his friend, and friends do each other favors. They will be friends, he will trust her with the location of the place he lives in, and then she can find her cloak and go home. Living on Earth is an interesting experience, one she is glad she has a chance to try, but she must return to Heaven eventually.

"What do you usually do during the day?" she asks when he does not say anything else. She has to admit, she does not only want her cloak back; she is curious. She spent her days in Heaven weaving clouds for Earth and now she will spend her days on Earth sewing clothes for its inhabitants; he does not look bruised enough to fight all day or even every day, and she remembers hearing him with two companions in that clearing in the forest.

"Nothing important," he says. "If you're situated already, I thought I'd show you a few basics."

Now that she can be bruised and scraped and cut, she feels each brush against her skin as acutely as a sharp sting, and just holding position makes her shoulders ache.

"Keep your fists curled," Levi says. He circles her like a hawk, adjusting her hands and correcting her posture, straightening her back and unbending her wrists. He is careful never to touch her longer than necessary, but his hands are hot against her skin every time he does and she bites her lip, trying to focus on what he is saying rather than his movements.

"Where are you from?" he asks.

"What?"

"Did you travel here alone? Is anyone searching for you?"

The questions are quick and direct, like they have been wanting to escape for a while now. She starts to lower her arms, to relax her stance, but Levi shakes his head so she keeps her limbs in position with a sigh.

"No. I'm alone."

"You never learned any self-defense before?"

"No."

"You never saw need to learn how to guard against men if you were going to travel alone?"

She furrows her brow but does not respond. He frowns too. "No one's ever tried anything before?"

"Anything like what?"

"Like…" He makes a vague gesture. "Grab you."

"No. Why would they?" If any of the guards in her father's palace had tried to do anything more than speak respectfully to her, her father would have cast them out of Heaven before they could even begin.

Levi stares at her as if unsure if she is being purposely obtuse. "Because you're pretty and you're foolish," he says flatly.

Petra grins, dropping her arms. "You think I'm pretty?"

No one has ever called her pretty before; beautiful, yes, because she is a goddess so of course she is beautiful, but never pretty. That word is reserved for human girls who may not be anyone special, but their appearances can still attract people. Does he find her appearance attractive? It is a nice thought, that someone who has no idea who she is would like the way she looks anyway.

"And foolish," he says. "You wouldn't be here otherwise; I'm a man and you don't know anything about me."

His words are impatient, but she catches the faint tinge of color in his cheeks. "You think I'm pretty!" she crows, delighted. He scowls and glares at her; she grins harder. "If you were a girl, I would think you're pretty too."

He makes her hold the posture an extra twenty minutes for that.

Life on Earth is, despite its limitations and setbacks, quite pleasant. She moves into the seamstress's home above the shop and wakes with the sun every morning to burn three sticks of incense before beginning the day. The seamstress does it for her ancestors; Petra kneels with her and presses her hands together the same way, but she does not think of the ancestors she does not have. Strangely, she finds she never thinks about her father or her sisters either; she thinks of the upcoming day or the harvest festival next month or spending time with Levi instead.

Sewing and weaving is slower on Earth, with limited materials and hands that tire, but she still manages to finish all her work early every day, and during the evening she is free to roam. Now that she no longer stands out so much, in pale clothing and her hair often covered with a scarf, she feels more at ease wandering the streets, tasting new delicacies and seeing new things.

Once or twice a week she meets Levi, sometimes in empty alleyways, but usually he brings her to the first place she saw him fight. It is not the only place he frequents, but it seems to be his favorite; he calls the people who work there by name and they greet him with easy familiarity. Auruo seems surprised to see her again the first time she goes back, but he quickly gets used to her presence.

"You're different from his other girls," he says once, after watching them practice. After showing her how to stand, how to shift her feet, how to make her movements more subtle, Levi taught her what to do should anyone attack her. Her body has long gotten used to the exhaustion after each lesson, and now her limbs feel freer when she walks—and now he is beginning to show her ways to attack too, despite his claim to only show her basic self-defense.

"He teaches other girls?"

"No, he doesn't teach." Auruo shrugs. "He keeps to himself, and the two friends who come to watch him sometimes."

"What would he do with other girls then?"

He stares at her for a long moment, his lips twitching. "Never mind."

It occurs to her later what Auruo must have meant, because while she knows about certain things in theory, she has never witnessed them put to practice so she does not think of them right away. The idea of Levi with other girls makes her feel strangely uncomfortable, though she isn't sure why—for all she knows, he sees other women all the time; she has not even met his two friends, the ones who must have been with him that day in the forest. Yet something about the thought irritates her anyway.

She resolves to ask him next time they meet, but instead he shows up with hair damp and water still trickling down his neck, and it reminds her of something else. "Did you bathe in your home?"

He nods, giving her an inscrutable look, then tilts his head expectantly, waiting for her to show him the punches she has been practicing. She continues talking instead. "Have you ever bathed in a river before?"

The expression on his face tells her exactly how odd he thinks her question is, but he does answer. "There's a forest outside the city with a stream in it; I go there to save water sometimes."

She thinks back to the voices in the clearing, remembering their words. "If you get hurt in fights, do you wash the wounds?"

"Yes."

She can hear the impatience in his tone so she begins to demonstrate what she has learned, but her mind is not on the lesson: it is back in that small stream in the woods, in the pool in the celestial gardens, wondering why she is suddenly seeing a face in it, and even now she does not know the answer to that question.

The harvest festival approaches as the days grow colder and shorter; despite the decrease in crops this year due to a drought, the harvest must be celebrated anyway in order to ensure the next year's prosperity. Petra wonders why she feels guilty about the lack of rain until she recalls her duty as a cloud weaver; it is a distant recollection, as if from a half-forgotten dream. Her sister is responsible for the rain though, so she chews her lip and waits for the matter to leave her mind.

"Are you doing anything for the harvest festival?" she asks one night—or early morning; it is very late—as he wipes blood from a cut on his abdomen. The crowd is scattering and workers are cleaning up the area; spilled ale must be mopped, torn bits of cloth and food remains thrown out, the ring disassembled. Petra has come to learn that such fights—and all the gambling that goes on during them—are not exactly legal, so all evidence of them must be hidden throughout the day, but she's not exactly supposed to be on Earth anyway so she does not really care. The only people being hurt know what they're getting into; she does not see the point in forbidding the events.

"This place will be closed." He puts the rag away, then turns to look for his tunic. It is within her reach so she hands it to him; their fingers brush along the fabric and she wonders fleetingly if the rest of his bare skin is as warm as his hands.

"Are you going to celebrate though? You never seem to celebrate anything."

"Everyone will be celebrating. The emperor even comes out of his palace to wave at his people once every few years. If he isn't too drunk."

"But will you celebrate?"

"I'll show you around," he says, which was what she was getting at, and she beams at him.

The seamstress closes shop the day of the festival, as does almost every business in the city; watching people set up stalls along the streets, Petra figures that besides the usual food stands, there will be games of darts, of guessing and chance, and the most random things she would never have thought to set up stalls for: rope-tying tricks, lantern making, and various other oddities.

Cakes seem to be everywhere, large and small alike, thin-crusted pastries filled with all sorts of pastes: red bean, lotus seed, green tea, date and nut, pineapple. The more expensive ones contain salted egg yolks, and each cake is imprinted with characters for longevity and harmony—some also have the names of the fillings.

A stage has been set up in the center of the city, a wide open square where the largest marketplace is located, and already musicians, singers, dancers, and acrobats are preparing performances for the night. The celebrations always begin in the afternoon and last long into the night.

The festival is also a time of reunions; families always gather together, no matter how busy. Petra feels guilty for not missing her sisters or her father, but at the same time she does not feel one bit guilty; they do not celebrate harvest festivals in Heaven. There is never anything to celebrate when everything is already perfect.

She wonders if she will ever meet Levi's family—and she does, when she sees him standing with two other people where he agreed to meet her.

"This is Isabel," he says, jerking his thumb at the girl about Petra's age, with dark red hair pulled into two pigtails and a bright, inviting smile. "And this is Farlan."

"It's great to finally meet you!" Isabel surprises her by pulling her into a hug. "Levi never stops talking about you."

She shoots him a quizzical glance over the girl's shoulder; Levi scowls but does not refute the statement. Petra tries not to feel too pleased and fails miserably.

"By never stops talking she means every rare time he says something unrelated to whatever's going on it's usually about you." Farlan steps forward and clasps his hands in a fist, bowing his head in a gesture of respect; she does the same after extricating herself from Isabel's grip. "It's good to meet you."

After a short time, she sees why Levi does not talk much; Isabel talks enough for all four of them combined. She chatters as she throws a few darts at a board and misses the target each time; she speaks around mouthfuls of the small cakes found on every street corner; she whispers commentary as they watch men and women juggle flaming balls and dance through rings of fire on stage.

The moon is round and high in the sky when her voice finally begins to peter out; she is growing sleepy. Farlan rests a hand on her arm to support her as they continue their way through the still-teeming streets, and Levi flicks her on the back of the neck in a gesture Petra can only describe as fond. Seeing the warmth in his eyes at that moment, Petra feels something in her heart stutter.

Before she can puzzle out what it must mean, they turn down a smaller road. Here the shops are more widely spaced apart, homes gradually taking their places, and the houses grow closer and closer together. She must be more tired than she thought, because it isn't until they stop in front of one that she realizes this must be where Levi lives.

His sideways glance at her speaks volumes. "You can stay if you want," he says, but she shakes her head.

"No, I have to work tomorrow. Thank you."

"Come in, at least," Isabel suggests. "Have a cup of tea."

The walls are bare, the furniture sparse, but signs of people living there are evident: parchment scattered on the low table in the first room, half-melted down candles and rolls of gauze all over the place, grooves on the wall marking changes in height. There are only three rooms, the main room, a kitchen, and a washroom, but it feels comforting, homey, nothing like the small austere bedroom she sleeps in on Earth or the large, opulent suites she left in Heaven. She likes it.

It is when Levi is brewing a pot of tea that she senses it, in a closet in the corner of the room. Isabel has fallen asleep, half-sprawled on a mattress, and Farlan is in the kitchen with Levi; she takes a deep breath, then walks over to the closet and pushes open the door.

Amidst bundles of other fabrics, blankets and sheets and clothing, lies her cloak, wrapped in a small bundle. The luminescence of the colors makes it stand out from the rest of the items in the closet, but beyond that, she would recognize and sense it anywhere—it is hers. She made it, she brought it with her from Heaven, and it is the only part of her real home that is with her on Earth.

She hears footsteps and shuts the door silently, then walks back to the other side of the room and sits. Levi and Farlan come out with the tea; Farlan pours three cups as Levi sighs upon seeing Isabel and ruffles her hair, exasperated. Petra watches him pull a blanket over the girl, accepts a steaming cup of hot tea from Farlan, and decides there can't be any harm in staying a bit longer.

Autumn turns cold, then freezing, as winter creeps in. Petra sews clothing and accessories fit for the weather and patches holes with thicker materials when she can make the fabrics blend well; fights underground become rarer. Her self-defense is solid now and she is sure she could fend for herself quite well should anyone try to hurt her one day in the streets, but Levi still shows her new methods of not only defending but attacking.

"Preparing me for the arena too?" she teases once, and falls silent at the look on his face.

"You'll never need that place," is his terse response. He does not say anything more about the subject.

The first time she sees snow, she drags Levi with her outside to taste the flakes on her tongue. "It doesn't snow where you come from?" he asks, and before thinking it through she says carelessly, "Nothing ever happens where I come from."

"In that case, you've probably never…" And in a sudden fit of what she can only call playfulness, he scoops up a handful of snow and pelts her with it.

She shrieks, possibly drawing the attention of every living soul on the surrounding two streets, but instantly her surprise turns into a desperate need to get him back. She grabs a handful of snow too, the cold seeping through her gloves, and flings a fistful in his face.

He is a grown man and she has lived countless years at her age, but suddenly she feels like they are only children, throwing snow at each other as it continues to fall around them. The ground is wet and slippery under her feet, flakes of white in her eyes and hair, stinging her nose, but she does not notice her surroundings, only Levi, and the vengeance she must take.

At last she hits him square in the face and he sputters, dropping whatever snow was left in his palms. She marches up to him and pokes him in the chest, smirking.

"I win."

He only blinks at her, and suddenly she realizes how close their faces are. His breath mists in the air between them, shallow and uneven, and watching the puffs of air leave his lips, she wants to capture each in her own mouth, see what they taste like.

She blinks too, and the moment passes. "You win," he says, and she tells herself his voice is unsteady because of the snow fight they just had, nothing more. "I win," she repeats with a nod, just to confirm, and she tells herself her voice is shaky for the same reason.

One thing Petra loves to do is read.

The characters all scrolls are written in are not much different from the ones in Heaven; they are modified, but still quite similar, and she finds much more enjoyable things to read on Earth than in the library of her father's palace. There are stories and adventures, tales of great heroes and clever spirits and resourceful heroines, and when she isn't sewing or spending time with Levi or sleeping, she loves to devour all the tales she can find.

There is one thing in common in every story she has read: if there is a romance, the moment the two characters meant to be together discover their love for one another, the moment is grand, wonderful, exciting, a satisfying mutual understanding between two entwined souls.

The moment she discovers she loves Levi is nothing special at all.

He's teaching her again after hours, near the small curtained-off area for fighters in the arena. The ring has been disassembled already and they are alone, but he is not sleepy and neither is she. He did well that night; he hardly ever loses and usually wins every round in one night, but tonight he did not seem to have to work for his victories at all.

He has not bothered to dress properly and she tries not to let the sight of his bare chest distract her; he is showing her a new move that, if used properly, can send her opponent crashing to the ground in one fell swoop. He demonstrates, hooking his foot lightly against her calf so as not to hurt her, but she feels the rattle of her bones when she hits the ground anyway.

This is life on Earth, she thinks. It is a lot of hardship, a lot of danger, a lot of feeling, a lot of pain.

Yet when she works hard and struggles, she achieves her goals, and her sense of accomplishment is something far more precious than the loom she sits at all day in Heaven, hands working tirelessly hour after hour, spinning perfection no matter what she does.

And when she finally manages it, finally catches Levi unaware and sends him tumbling to the ground, she is so surprised but pleased that she trips and falls with him.

"You did it. Good job," he says, and smiles.

He never smiles—his lips twitch, he smirks, he coughs low laughs in his throat, but he never smiles like that, a pure and genuine smile, and with a sudden lurch in her chest, she realizes she would do anything to see it again, every day for as long as she lives.

She does not want to go back to Heaven, not if she cannot bring him with her.

"What's wrong?" he asks; she must be staring off into space.

The sound of his voice brings her back to the present. She is still lying on top of him, her face close to his, close enough that she can see each swirl of blue and gray in his irises, every eyelash framing his gaze. She can feel the heat of his bare skin through her clothing, see the remnants of his smile on his lips, and she doesn't want to think about what home should be or what life should be like, so she just acts instead.

She presses her mouth to his, hesitantly at first, then harder when he does not pull away. She threads her fingers through his hair and closes her eyes and lets herself feel: the warmth of his arms as he wraps them around her, the softness of his lips, the way every part of her body seems to fit perfectly with his.

For one moment everything feels right, and then he pushes her away abruptly and sits up.

"What's wrong?" It is her turn to ask this time.

He does not look at her, staring past her instead, his gaze slightly unfocused. His lips are wet and she fights the urge to pull him back and taste them again. His hands form fists in his lap.

"You should go home," he says.

A spark of something like anger ignites in her chest. "That's it?"

"What?"

"'Go home'?"

He still does not look at her; he pushes himself to his feet and she rises too, scrambling to catch up with his movements. "You should. It's getting late."

"That place is not my home," she manages to say calmly. "I do not have a home on this earth."

"Where is your home then?"

"With you!"

The words ring in the stillness between them and she instantly wishes she could take them back. She suddenly feels small, stupid, insignificant—no one has ever made her feel this way before. She is a goddess; she does not belong on Earth, but this one human man can make her feel special and worthless all at once.

He barks a rough laugh; the sound is harsh, like it is being ripped from his throat. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"If you don't care for me, then just say so," she says furiously. "Don't just tell me to go home or that I'm being silly."

"You don't know what you're talking about," he repeats. He turns away, reaching for the discarded tunic on the bench nearby. "You don't even know me."

"I know you," she says. She feels the sting of tears in her eyes and she swallows; she will not cry. "You fight for money, but you use the money to support your family, two people you met on the streets and have cared for since. Most people think you're rude, but you just don't see the point in disguising who you really are or sugarcoating bad things. You like cleaning and you write with your left hand and you hate it when people leave doors open just a crack—"

"Stop it."

"You like the stars, and you can identify more constellations than anyone I've known—including one of my sisters, who lives for the stars. You don't like wearing black all the time but you do it anyway because everyone expects it of you. You prefer black tea to green tea and you drink at least one cup a day—"

"Stop it."

"You've been this height since you were twelve, you don't have a surname and you never had parents, you hate it when people don't listen to you after you say something more than once—like I'm doing now—"

"And I'm not a good person?" He practically spits the words. "Where is that on your list?"

"You are a good person," she whispers.

"You don't know anything about me then."

"Like what?" she snaps. "Did you steal to survive? Did you kill someone who tried to sneak up on you in your sleep?"

"Yes," he practically blazes, "but I stole even when I didn't need to, and I killed innocent people. And that's not the worst of it. I told you, you don't know anything about me, and it would be best for you if you left. Now."

Petra takes a deep breath, then marches across the room towards him. His glare falters when she stops in front of him, and disappears when she tugs his mouth to his and kisses him again, just once, hard across the lips.

"And I told you," she says, "I know you, and I know you don't do any of that anymore. It's who you are now that matters, not who you used to be." She doesn't know if she's saying the words to herself too.

His eyes close; when he exhales, his breath is shaky. "I'm not a good person, Petra," he says, his voice hoarse, and it strikes her that it is the first time she can remember hearing her name from him since they first met.

"You are to me," she says simply, and when she pulls him close again, he does not resist this time.

The new year comes and goes, complete with two customary weeks of celebration: red papers are seen everywhere, hanging in doorways and windows to ward off evil spirits; colorful lanterns line every street, more and more appearing every day; firecrackers sound every night, crackling and popping loudly enough to wake the dead.

The seamstress's shop is closed; she is spending the holidays with her family in a different city. Petra assures her she has someplace to stay, and moves in with Levi, Isabel, and Farlan for a time.

Part of her expects the new living arrangements to be awkward, considering where her relationship with Levi has gone, but Isabel and Farlan do not seem to mind. The two of them often disappear together at random intervals and Petra suspects they want to give her and Levi privacy.

Not much is different from before, only he takes her to other places besides the market and tries to pay for her things. She insists she has a job and can pay for herself, but he often ends up being the one to hand over coins anyway, much to her annoyance.

Then, of course, there is the kissing. Petra decides she quite likes kissing. Hearing about it and doing it are two completely different things, and she begins to understand why people engage in certain activities when they do not want to have children just yet.

Heaven is no longer a distant dream, just a faded afterthought, but one day she opens the closet and sees the brilliance of her cloak lying on the ground and the afterthought rushes back to the forefront of her mind.

"I have something to tell you," she says that night in bed; she whispers the words in the crook of his neck, not wanting to wake Isabel and Farlan. They moved their mattresses closer to the kitchen door, but the room can only be so large.

"What?"

She shifts, brushing her lips up his jaw and next to his ear. "That cloak you found last year in the forest… the one in the closet. It's mine."

He does not answer; his breathing remains even and she continues. "I was there when you took it. I ran into you by chance and I asked you your name because… I wanted to find you again because I needed it back. I need it back if I want to go home."

It is a terrible explanation, but she does not know how to explain it any better than that. He is silent for a moment, his heartbeat steady against hers, his face inscrutable in the dark, and then he presses his lips to her hair and murmurs, "You can have it back if you want."

She thinks about the cloak, its colors forever bright, never dulling, wrapped in an untouched bundle in the closet, and she thinks of Levi, light and dark all at once and weathered around the edges, and she thinks Heaven has never made her feel as warm as she does in his arms. "It's where it should be," she says, and when he kisses her, she can feel his smile against her lips.

The seamstress returns, and Petra moves back into her bedroom above the shop and returns to sewing. Her hands are no longer delicate, fingertips callused from constant needles, knuckles bruised and misshapen from months of punches, but she feels stronger and surer and more and more certain she is exactly where she wants to be.

Winter thaws into spring; flowers bloom on the trees outside, growing between weeds in the cracks in the streets, and the snow melts a bit more every day. The plum blossoms, beautiful in the cold, pink against a backdrop of white, are even more radiant against green; the little delicate flowers are fighters too, survivors of the long winter.

Petra is alone in the shop downstairs, counting coins and thinking of the amount she has saved, trying not to dream of a house of her own just yet, when the door opens and someone walks in. "Good morning; may I help you?" she says without looking up.

"Nothing for me, but there are a few clouds that need weaving," a cool voice answers.

Deep, black dread curdles in her stomach; she looks up slowly into her sister's ice-blue eyes. "Annie," she whispers.

"Petra."

Neither of them speak for a moment; Petra drops the coins in her hands and Annie shuts the door with a quiet click. The sound is oddly final.

"Lovely shop," Annie says blandly. "Not yours, I presume?"

"No." Petra swallows. "I work here. It's—"

"Do you live here or with that man?"

She thought she felt dread just then; that was nothing compared to the pit threatening to swallow her whole now. "I don't know what you're—"

"The underground fighter. What's his name?" Annie did not forget; she never forgets anything. "Levi, I believe. The workers at a certain tavern have a lot to say about you and him."

Petra thinks of Auruo, friendly and willing to chat with anybody, and her heart hurts. "Are you here to bring me back?" she wants to know. Her head hurts too; her hands flutter uselessly at her sides.

"You were gone for a few hours, sister," Annie says. "Father noticed, and when he saw ripples in the pool he sent me to fetch you." A pale hint of a smile curves at her lips. "I never would have had a chance to visit this place otherwise. Father would have sent someone else to fetch you, but he was afraid no other woman could get you back safely and he did not want you coming into too much contact with a man." Something like amusement flickers in the blue recesses of her eyes. "He's too late for that, anyway."

Petra opens her mouth, then closes it again, then presses her lips into a line and stands straighter. She has found so much more to live for in the past half year—only a few hours in Heaven—and she will not be cowed now. "I'm not going back," she says.

Annie shrugs. "I won't force you then."

Petra's next words are half-formed on her lips; she lets them die out as she stares at her sister in disbelief. Surely it cannot be this easy. "You won't?"

"No." Another shrug. "But Father will come get you himself if I return empty-handed."

It is like all the air has been squeezed out of Petra's lungs; her breath freezes to ice in her throat and her blood runs cold in her veins. The unspoken words hang in the air: and he will kill that man for daring to lay a hand on you.

"Your choice." Annie's eyes sweep the shop again. "These fabrics are all a bit dull for you, aren't they, sister?"

She is halfway out the door when Petra finds her voice again. "I'll go back," she says numbly. Annie glances back at her; Petra hates the pity in her eyes, more than she would hate any gloating or satisfaction. "I'll go."

The Jade Emperor is furious.

Petra does not care; she cannot bring herself to care. Her father tells her coldly how foolish her actions were, how she should have returned immediately upon accidentally discovering the portal, how idiotic it was to lose her cloak, how fortunate she was that he noticed so quickly and sent her sister to find her.

The Jade Emperor never raises his voice.

Petra waits until he is gone before sinking into her bed and staring at the ceiling, willing her eyes to stay dry. Then she remembers where she is: she will not cry if she does not want to, and somehow the thought infuriates her more.

She should be grateful to her younger sister; Annie did not mention a word of Levi to their father. She ought to be thankful for that, at least, but instead she is wondering how much time has passed on Earth already, if it has been more than a day, if anyone has noticed her absence. She did not have time to leave a note; the moment she agreed to leave, Annie took her hand and pulled her into the darkness she traveled through many months—no, it was only a few hours—ago to reach Earth in the first place.

Her hands are slender and smooth again: her fingertips uncreased, knuckles slim. She developed muscle from all her time spent learning how to fight; that is gone too. She has not been missing for long and there is no physical proof of her absence; all she has left are memories.

She thinks of the seamstress, suddenly without a helper anymore. She thinks of Auruo and Isabel and Farlan, friends she will never see again. She thinks of Levi, forever wondering where she went, why she disappeared and left him, and she wants to cry, but the tears do not come. She does not truly want to cry; she is too angry to cry. She wants to hit something, punch something, put the knowledge he gave her to good use and beat something up, but there is nothing to beat in Heaven.

She closes her eyes and falls asleep instead.

She sleeps for what feels like eons, but when she wakes up it is only evening—it is still the seventh day of the seventh month.

Her loom sits untouched in the corner, rolls and sheets of silks spread around it, the half-finished scarf still draped across it. The bright colors hurt her eyes and she finds herself wishing for rougher cottons instead, not the ethereal softness of clouds.

But she is the goddess of the clouds, working in tandem with her sisters to keep the earth in harmony with its elements, and she cannot live a life in the very place she has been tasked with providing for. She enjoyed her time there—too much—but in the end, she is still an immortal goddess, one of the Jade Emperor's daughters, and she can only return to Heaven to continue her eternal work.

Her mind can accept the truth, but her heart cannot.

She has changed into another one of the pale blue silken dresses she owns so many of; her father refused to let her keep her "rags." She opens the door to her room and steps out, making her way down the gilded hallway; the golden opulence she took for granted is now dazzling to her eyes. Heaven has not changed—it never does—but she has.

She finds her way back to the gardens, where all of this started. A sprite flits through the air, rainbows shimmering on its wings, and the glow of sunlight is warm against her face. But it is not sunlight, simply light, ever-present light, and the verdant green of the plants, the vivid intensity of the flowers, the clear blue of the sky through the trees all make her head pound.

Considering what happened, she is surprised there are no guards around the pool, but she supposes if her father does not know about Levi then he does not think she wants to descend to Earth again. The little pond is exactly how she left it, hidden beneath the shade of two willow trees, its waters clear and still as ever.

She sits down and stares at it, her last connection to the earth below, but if she goes through again Levi will die.

He'll die anyway, she thinks, forcing herself to admit the bitter truth. He is human and you are immortal. Yet the thought does not ease the emptiness in her chest.

If only she could see him one last time. She would tell him the truth, then say her farewells. Just one last time. Maybe she can convince her father…

As if in response to her thoughts, the waters ripple, something dark gleaming in the depths of the pool. Before she would have sat up, eager for another glimpse of life on Earth, but now that she has experienced it, she knows the pool offers nothing. Brief visions are nothing compared to the real thing.

Something flashes again, then swirls. The waters seem to be agitated; she sees a flare of color and a form beneath the waves. Maybe a year has passed on Earth already and the pool is showing her another festival; the firecrackers were so loud she would not be surprised if she can hear them from Heaven. There are always lion and dragon dances, red envelopes for children, lanterns decorating every street corner…

Petra bites her lip and blinks back tears.

The waters are churning now; whatever is going on down on Earth must be exciting indeed. It occurs to her that another giant wave of water might be overtaking the land in a terrible storm; there was a flood once, long ago even in her memory. Hardly any humans survived that disaster; she does not want Levi or any of the people she knows on Earth to die in such a dreadful way. If they must die, she wants it to happen when they are old and peaceful, lying in bed, no pains troubling them.

The form is starting to take shape; it is dark, black, the same shade of Levi's tunic, and then there are bright colors, shining with the brilliance of the gardens surrounding her. She steps back, suddenly nervous, afraid of what the pool will show her when the waves die down.

And then the waters rear up and explode, spitting droplets all over her and the willow trees and the grass around the pond, and when they finally drop back and settle in the pool, Levi is there.

She shoots to her feet, unable to believe her eyes. He is breathing heavily, sprawled across the ground, the glimmering shades of her cloak clenched in his fist. He pushes himself into a sitting position and his eyes widen a fraction when they take in the radiance of Heaven around him—and then they focus on her and her world goes still.

"I thought so," he says, with a deep, rattling sigh, and he offers her a tired smile.

She nearly trips in her haste to get to him; she falls on him clumsily, as graceless as she can be here, and holds him tight. He is drenched, his hair plastered to his face, his skin wet and cold, but she takes his face in her hands and kisses his forehead, his cheeks, the bridge of his nose, his lips; it has not even been a day in Heaven but it feels like ages in her heart. "You're here," she says wonderingly. "How did you…?"

He looks different; faint lines crease his brow, lines that were not there before, and she remembers it must have been months for him. "I didn't know humans could come here," she says, shifting so that she is no longer sitting right on top of him, but she does not let go. "You must be the first."

"Surely there were others."

His tone is half-joking, but then he stares at her and his face sobers. "How long has it been since you were gone?"

"What?"

"You heard me."

So she did. "Not long," she admits. "What about you?"

"It's the seventh day of the seventh month," he says. "A year after I met you."

He knows. She still cannot wrap her mind around the fact that he knows. "How did you find out? How did you come here?"

"I had suspicions," he says. "No one names their daughters after the goddesses, and you appeared out of nowhere on the same day we found that cloak—every time I thought of selling it, I couldn't. Like it wasn't mine to sell." He shakes his head. "I used to steal a lot; you know that. It shouldn't have bothered me, but it did.

"And then you never had visitors, never mentioned family except a sister once, never seemed to have connections with anyone else. The roads leading in and out of the city are dangerous; if you traveled alone from a different city, it would have been a rare thing if you weren't attacked by bandits or worse. And you mentioned you were a weaver, just like the goddess, and what you said about your home and the cloak…"

"So you figured it out yourself," Petra says. She presses her face to his neck and inhales his clean, familiar scent. "You're smart."

"I tried not to think about it," he says. "You don't think things like that about goddesses. But when you disappeared, I knew, and I thought you would come back but you didn't."

"My sister came to fetch me," she whispers. "She didn't tell my father. If he knew, he would have killed you." She pulls back and looks at him, alarmed. "You should go. Before he finds out and does kill you. You can't die, Levi."

"I will die eventually." His tone is resigned. "But I wanted to see you again. And return your cloak." He gestures at the heap of perfectly dry fabric on the ground nearby, colors ever-glowing and radiant. "How did you get back without it?"

"I think…" Petra stares at it, mind whirring, and things slowly start to make sense. "I think I never needed it to get back. But if you leave things behind, others can use them to follow you. That's why we shouldn't leave anything behind. But I'm glad I did. You never would have come to see me otherwise."

"I jumped in that stream in the forest," he says, his lips twitching at the thought. "I couldn't imagine where I might find a way to Heaven, until I remembered what you said. I had your cloak and I didn't drown, and then I ended up here."

"I'm glad you're here," she says, and buries her face in his shoulder, clutching him as tightly as she can. His arms wrap around her too, and she can feel the warmth of his skin through his wet clothing, the quiet thumping of his heart against hers, and she never wants to let him go.

The thought has barely entered her head when she feels something else, a shift in the air, a charge of something different behind her. It is that one instinct that probably saves his life.

She shoves him as hard as she can, sending him tumbling back, and she whirls around just in time to see the Jade Emperor, eyes flashing in fury, hand arcing through the air. White light bursts in the spot Levi occupied a moment ago and her ears pop; when the flare dies down, she sees a smoking black hole in the grass. With another wave of his hand, her father restores the grass to its former vitality, and in that moment she stands and spreads her arms wide, blocking Levi off.

"You're not going to kill him, Father," she says with a calmness she does not feel; her heart is somewhere in her throat and she has to squeeze the words out, struggle to keep them even.

"Your sister never told me you were with a man."

"He was not with me when she found me."

"No human is allowed to sully a goddess," the Jade Emperor says. His face is a slab of marble for all the emotion that it shows. "He cannot be allowed to live."

"No one sullied me," Petra says, raising her chin. "If anything, I am the one who sullied him. I found him first. He is not to blame."

Behind her, she can feel Levi about to say something, and she shakes her head minutely. If he speaks now, his life will be instantly forfeit.

"He cannot be here," her father says.

She thinks of long days on Earth, her fingers hard and callused, her knuckles cracked and bloody, of cold sheds and lumpy mattresses and week after week of aches and pains, of sweat dripping down her neck as she attempts another move for the umpteenth time, of candlelight flickering and dying as she sews late into the night, of Levi's hands guiding hers in the dark. She thinks of the teeming masses of people celebrating the harvest, the new year, of people watching men fight each other in a ring below the earth and exchanging money. She thinks of the seamstress, a kind woman who gave her a place to stay, of Auruo and Isabel and Farlan, of friendly customers who praised her needlework and little children who called her "auntie." She thinks of life, of change, of the richness of the world below, and she stands as tall as she can.

"If he dies, Father," she says, "I will not do my duty."

"You must." His eyes blaze green fire.

"I will stay in Heaven. I cannot leave, after all. But no one can make me weave, and Earth will suffer for it."

It is the one thing the Jade Emperor does not have control over; no one has control over the order of the universe. She is a goddess, meant to serve Earth in exchange for eternal life in Heaven, and that is the way things are meant to be. Even her father does not have the power to overturn Heaven and Earth.

For one long moment, no one breathes. Even the opulence of the gardens seems to diminish as the Jade Emperor makes his decision. She does not look away, meeting his gaze straight on, and after a pause that seems to last an eternity, he looks away first.

"Very well," he says. "The human will not die."

Petra allows herself a sigh of relief—and then gasps as her father makes another sudden motion with his hand and the ground below her feet starts to tremble. It shakes harder, the sound of rock tearing deep beneath the surface, then splits. She whirls around and finds a fissure between her and Levi behind her, deepening and widening with every second. The crack reaches the pool and water spills in, filling the crevice with water.

"He will live," the Jade Emperor says. "He will live in Heaven, and he will never die, but you will never see him again."

"Father!"

"It is what you asked for."

That's not what I meant and you know it, she wants to cry, but already Levi is too far away so she turns back around. She can still see him across the widening chasm, but his figure is already too small, the features of his face indistinct.Petra, she thinks she hears him shout, she thinks his lips form the two syllables of her name, but then he is a only a shadow across the chasm and then he is gone.

"You must do your duty," the Jade Emperor says, and then he turns and walks away.

Petra sinks to her knees in the grass and weeps. Around her, everything beams brilliance as it always has and always will.

She sits at her loom and weaves.

There is nothing else to do; the pool is gone, and the corner of the gardens where it was has been cut off from the rest of Heaven. Even if she could she does not know if she would want to visit it again; it is only a reminder of all she has lost.

Fairies bring her the richest silks of the most gorgeous colors and she spins clouds all day long, sending them off to cover the Earth in rain or shine. She is very meticulous with her work, counting precise numbers of threads and picking exact shades for each one, and when Historia visits once in an attempt to cheer her up, the little goddess of the stars says she has never seen finer work.

Petra tries not to think much; she focuses entirely on her loom and each new bolt of cloth sent to her room. If she starts to think, she will start to be sad or angry or both, and there is no point in dwelling on such emotions; no matter how she feels, nothing will change.

Annie visits once. "You'll get over it," she says carefully, not looking at her sister but at the satin shrouding the loom instead. "You have eternity."

Petra's fingers twist against the fabric and she takes a long breath, reminding herself anger has no benefits. "I love him," she says, and resumes her weaving.

There is a pause. When Annie speaks again, her voice is not quite regretful, but neither is it quite so blank. "I did find the occupation he chose interesting."

Petra looks up at that; her sister is leaving the room. She supposes it is the closest thing to an apology she will get from Annie, but she does not blame her sister; she does not even blame her father. She has no one to blame but herself, and she wishes she never went down to Earth at all but at the same time she cannot imagine not having those experiences.

Time passes as if in a dream; when she was on Earth, the thought of Heaven seemed a dream, but now she is back and she realizes everything is a dream. Time is fluid here; she does not know how much of it passes. She weaves and eats and sleeps and murmurs politely when spoken to, and one time during dinner her father asks her a direct question.

"What do you think?"

She does not look up from her plate; she tries to recall the conversation topic and comes up blank. "I don't think anything, sir," she says, and she does not sleep afterwards, spending her time at the loom instead.

She has lost count again of how many silver threads she picked when the door to her room flies open. Glancing up, she sees her sisters walking in—seven of them, all dressed in golden-white, all with various forms of determination on their faces.

"Is something the matter?"

"Get up," Mikasa says, tugging her to her feet. The taller girl throws a cloak at her and another comes over to grab her other arm. "You need to get out of this room," Sasha declares.

"I just ate dinner with—"

"And away from your loom," Historia chimes in.

Annie is among the seven; most of them are silent as they push Petra out of her room and into the hallway. She tries halfheartedly to resist, but lets them lead her along.

"Where are we going?"

"We asked Father," is all Mikasa will say.

She only understands when they reach the gardens, and head down a path she knows only too well. "I don't want—" she begins, but seven voices shush her.

"Father will never admit he was wrong," Historia says as they pull her through the dense foliage. "But he cares about you, and he doesn't like seeing you sad. We don't like seeing you sad either, Petra. We talked to Father and he agreed—you're doing your duty and we're doing ours, but once a year on this day, we can spare time for this."

And rounding the last corner under the willow trees, her sisters push her forward.

Petra can only stare; the grass ends at the bottomless chasm she sees every time she closes her eyes, but something is different about it. At the very edge of the drop, a faint white mist settles, thin tendrils of silk and satin woven into a structure of steel. She bends to her knees and touches the mist; it is solid and cool against her fingers.

"We used some of your clouds too," Sasha says with a grin. "All of us, we took resources from Earth to build this bridge. It can only last one day before Earth needs everything back, but once a year you can go see him."

Petra does not say anything; she does not know what to say. She looks at her sisters and they all smile back at her, even Annie.

"Go!" Historia pushes her onto the bridge.

It is like walking on air, if air were solid; her feet slip and slide but she knows she will never fall. The waters of what once was a pool rush far below her, churning against the sides of the crevice, but she does not fear them. She does not look down or behind, only ahead, and quite suddenly she is on the other side.

This must be the end of the world—that is her first thought. Her second thought is that it cannot be the end of the world, because there is brightness beyond, orange and gold and red encompassing her like she is trapped in an eternal sunset, and there is grass at her feet and a cool wind in her hair and then, between one blink and the next, Levi by her side.

"You're here," he says. His voice is scratchy with disuse; he does not look one bit different from the last time she saw him, other than that he is dry. He blinks at her in disbelief. "How—?"

It is his turn to be baffled now; she would laugh if she were not about to cry. She is almost afraid to touch him, afraid he is only an apparition and will disappear if she tries, but then his arms are around her and she is breathing in his scent again, warm and clean and familiar, and she presses her forehead to his and closes her eyes.

"How long has it been?" she whispers.

"I try to count the sunsets," he says. "I don't know if I'm right, but I think today is the seventh day of the seventh month."

A year. It has been a year in Heaven, and perhaps a hundred or a thousand or none at all on Earth. "It's always the seventh day of the seventh month," she says, her voice half-laugh, half-sob.

"How are you here?" He runs a hand through her hair, pulls her down into the grass with him. They sit facing the edge of the world, watching the colors bleed together in the sky, and for the first time in what seems to be forever, she feels warm again.

"My sisters asked my father and he agreed. They built a bridge and they'll do it once a year on this day."

"Once a year?" His fingers still against her skin.

"Once a year."

He tilts her head back, studies her face. "Well, if I'm immortal now, that doesn't sound too bad."

She manages to laugh though her eyes are watering; she tightens her hold on him as the tears begin to leak out. "I'm sorry," she says. She has been thinking the words ever since the chasm was created, and she will never say them enough. "I'm sorry, Levi. I never meant to—"

He kisses the corner of her mouth and her words die on her lips. "If we only have one day a year, don't waste it on unnecessary apologies," he says, and she understands, and she nods and smiles through her tears.

Behind them, the remnants of stars scatter across the bridge in the sky, and below on Earth, another festival begins on the seventh day of the seventh month. On that day, if one looks hard enough into the night sky, one will see the river that flows between the two stars, a third forming a constellation for one brief night, and they are joined together once a year before waiting for the next to be reunited again.

A/N: Most versions of the tale have the goddess bathing in the river, and when the cowherd sees her he instantly falls in love with her and takes her cloak and refuses to give it back unless she marries him or something. When she eventually goes back to Heaven, either by taking her cloak and leaving or when someone comes to get her, his loyal talking cow tells him it must be sacrificed and a cloak made of its hide so he can follow her to Heaven. Or something. (In some versions the three of them—the weaver, the cowherd, and the cow—used to be friends in Heaven until two of them—the weaver and the cow—got sent down. Or… something.)

At any rate I could not picture Levi as a cowherd, and I could not picture him doing something like that (nor do I want to; he'd respect Petra's choices) so I just made crap up. I hope it made sense lol. Also in the end they're supposed to meet on the bridge, not on one side of it, but WHATEVER.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! :)