A/N: Written for songstar13's 64 themes challenge on The Reviews Lounge, Too forum, prompt #1 - 2 am.

Also, since the switching gender thing in the anime gets quite confusing, I'm sticking to the manga interpretation that the Starlights are cross-dressing women and calling them with the feminine pronouns throughout. They would be women to Princess Kakyuu either way; it is their civilian identities that bring about the confusion.

Enjoy a brief stint of Maker/Taiki on the stage. :)


Little Stars

The sky was dark, and it had been dark since they arrived at Earth. People rattled on about how the sky shouldn't be that dark – how the clouds were persisting longer than their usual spring into summer, how it was some omen to the wrath of a God or some other natural disaster…

Maker didn't know whether to call those people perceptive or foolish. The truth most likely lay somewhere in between. But that didn't matter; they hadn't descended to Earth to see the stars: they were the stars, dimly spluttering as they searched for the sun to make them sparkle again.

But the Princess was nowhere to be found; no matter how loud and strong their voices called across the galaxy, there was no answering glow. And even in a canvas almost pure black, there were only their three dull stars on the sky.

Still, she pulled the curtains a little further back and parted her lips, letting the well-rehearsed sounds fall from her lips without words. Her eyes remained firmly upon her own star – the little twinge in between the other two – and part of her hoped there would appear a twinkle beside it.

But there was nothing. Not for them, nor for her alone.