A Bob Fic! In which he is not down in Hades yet, and is not yet Bob but Iapetus!
All rights are the head troll's.
The stars. He never paid that much attention to them, preferring the sun and the clouds and the moon in their vast grandeur and bold beauty, but tonight, just tonight, it was his turn to see the stars. The gentle, shy stars that blinked at you, bright and then dim once more, that littered the entire sky, yet were each still unique in their masses. The modest, sweet stars with their friendly glow and their fantastic stories of times gone by far before, times they have seen and we have not, captured in their positions between each other better than any ink can capture a heart, or any paint can capture a thought. The tars were the first form of story telling, he mused; they told you their story, and you had to see it through your own eyes, understand it in your own way, and share it with others who have seen it too, because anybody can understand the stars, but not anybody can understand letters or articulate paintings, because with the stars, the story was in you, and the stars were just a way of finding it.
They blinked and wavered at him, hopes rising and lowering at their steady beat, a beat steady and pure even though for every star at any moment, it was different. They were singing, in thousands of silent voices, singing of the sights from their place in the sky and of those who got to see them, who got to dance with the stars in their majestic, still dance every night until they were whisked away, and every step in the dance was a beacon of hope or despair sent like an arrow to pierce through his heart, and each shining arrow found its place amidst his deepest fears and desires.
They did not claim to be eternal. Each morning, they were brushed away, yet they always returned, bravely facing their challengers, though much greater than them, and he hoped that he had it in him too, because he would need the star's bravery soon, he would need it to face a task greater and more talented than he was. He would need the stars' bravery to pretend in the morning that it is the sun he hailed, not those kind stars that followed him an his every thought through his course of life, carefully singing of his present and his past in sweet voices, dancing to his woes and painting his sins with every step he took upon the Earth, yet he was happy that they did, happy that he had a reminder that he was not perfect and not eternal, just like the stars. His stars.
Some said that each person had a lucky star, following them and praising them, yet he was bound to disagree. While the sun worked its way to every corner and the moon cast eerie shadows on the people, the stars were content without seeking his life, his motivation. The stars were content as long as there was a tale to tell of, a story to wave in the sky's mighty fabric. As long as that, they required no audience, praise or congratulation, and he admired this, too, in the stars. He would need it too. He would need it to overcome his fear of those he should be siding with and those he should not, a fear that stupefied him daily. A fear that his watcher would be disappointed, unhappy with the result.
He wondered what it felt like, to live there, between the stars? Was it as beautiful as the stars made it out to be, or was it as human and mundane and standard as his own, bitter world, where wars were started over silly quarrels and people hated and fought and rowed, where he wished for one day with no conflict, war or tragedy staining the papers red with blood of innocent soldiers fighting a meaningless war. This was what he was here to change, the trigger-happy hatred of short lived mortals. He wanted a peaceful, quiet world to be built instead, one built on the foundation of grim stars, instead of that of a bloodied skeleton, because surely, brave stars would stick together much more than treacherous humans and beliefs.
He looked up to the stars, and took them in, appreciating their every step through the night sky and their gradual disappearance in favour of the ugly morning, and he thought, 'Goodbye, stars. Let us meet again', and that was the last time he was witness to them and their ways.
Written for yesterday's 750 words challenge. Please read my longer fic, 'You Don't Have to Come Back' [sorry, can't link!]