.
Under a Starry Sky
Author's note: My main motivation to write a Tangled fanfic was to deal with the complex emotions Rapunzel must feel towards Mother Gothel after the events of the film. I don't believe she could come to terms with suddenly hating her former mother - there must be some conflicting feelings. But of course Rapunzel and Eugene are just adorable together, so I had to take this opportunity to show their relationship advancing too! :) You can expect much general cuteness with just a dash of drama to spice things up.
This fanfiction is dedicated to Sasha, who I love most.
Rapunzel awoke with a single word on her lips: mother. Her skin was flush with the nocturnal remnants of an overactive imagination. Pearly moonlight flooded in through the open window, the curtain fluttering as if with the memory of the day's balmy breeze. The girl suddenly remembered she was no longer in her tower. Sitting up in bed, she used a drowsy hand to brush back a thread of hair as cold empty space hit the tips of her fingers, only afterwards recalling that her yards of golden tresses were gone. A shivering realisation drew itself over her, a blanket of pins-and-needles awareness: so much had changed so quickly.
She got up then, treading on thoughtful tiptoes to the windowsill. It was still so strange to gaze out at the whole city - the whole world! - and know that she could explore it whenever she wanted, every inch and every nook and cranny. She could find all the small shadowy places, and the hidden spots where beauty lounged untouched like a cat in the sun, places to be known only to her. Wonderlusting eyes drunk in the sight of the city lit at night, a jewel in the crown of Corona. Small cottages were stacked together in rows and spontaneous clusters, huddled cosily and sharing secrets in the dark. Radiant, trembling with countless lights, a winding thoroughfare meandered its way through the city, from the castle at the top of the island to its wide waterfront base. Small, homely glimmers of warmth held the inky purple of a sleeping sky at bay. The city was alive. Rapunzel could feel it murmuring in her ear, thrumming at her feet.
She closed her eyes and wished her lingering nightmare away. At the edges of her mind it clung, as unwelcome and unsettling as a long-legged spider. This was the fourth time this week she'd awoken in the middle of the night to a lazy moon and her own shallow breathing. When Rapunzel turned back towards her darkened room she immediately regretted it, because the shadows were black mantles and the city lights reflected in the mirror had twisted into a mass of unblinking eyes. She shivered. Rapunzel crept quickly back to bed and pulled the sheets around her neck.
"Pascal?"
The chameleon was fast asleep on her pillow. Slumber had dyed his scales a particularly calming shade of natural green. She had managed to disturb him the past few nights, and she really couldn't wake him now he was sleeping so peacefully. Rapunzel sighed to herself and tried to avert her eyes from the vague, sinister corners of the bedroom.
After several minutes of restless twisting and turning, the girl decided it would be utterly impossible for her to go back to sleep. That spider kept twitching, leering at her, flexing its legs. She got to her feet and reached for her dressing gown, offering a hushed goodbye to Pascal. Slipping out of the room, she shut the door swiftly behind her, desperate to trap the unpleasant arachnid away.
Traversing the long hallways and wide chambers of the castle at night was partly like a dream and partly like a vision. It almost made her feel agoraphobic, to experience so much open space after eighteen years of confinement. At the turn of each corridor she would stop, scarcely believing there could be yet more, but the castle would stretch endlessly on, through serving rooms and bedchambers and dining halls. Vast tapestries hung on the stone walls, stitched with deep mauve and gleaming gold, sprawling depictions of the ancient legends of Corona's lore. In the brighter areas moonlight filtered in through small slits in the castle's barricades, until whole rooms were stained a ghostly ivory. Rapunzel had to stop and wait in these places, holding her breath. In the daytime the castle buzzed gloriously with sunlight, regal and grand, but during the night it changed somehow: it slipped on a strange and exquisite beauty, like a diamond-threaded shawl. The girl would listen intently until she could hear the humming of cicadas in the castle gardens, the creaking of the docks far below, the stone slabs underneath her bare feet. Only then would she smile and feel contented to pass by.
Rapunzel loved the castle by night. She loved the stillness. Nothing excited her more than a whole city vibrant with thousands of inhabitants, but after spending years in a deserted tower, it was easy to be overwhelmed by so much hustle and bustle. She loved the quiet; she loved not bumping in to successions of people who she had to remember to greet properly and courteously. There were guards stationed at various points throughout the castle, yes, but Rapunzel knew the layout well enough by now to avoid them on any midnight expeditions. She had even learned the secret passageway through the kitchen and out onto the castle grounds from several of the scullery maids.
The library was her favourite place. To a girl who has had access to a grand total of three books her entire life, a whole room stacked with shelves upon shelves of dusty tomes, ochre with age, is a categorical treasure trove. It seemed to be the oldest part of the castle, creaking with weight and reminiscences. Dust hung thickly in the air, catching shards of light at dusk. It was immeasurably lofty, sky-high, with thick and tall stained windowpanes whose colour had long since faded. Other, smaller appendages branched off from the main room, cosy hollows hemmed in by bookshelves, where thoughtful individuals had placed tables and comfy armchairs. These were obviously later additions which had been somewhat hastily built when the original library began to groan under several centuries' worth of books.
But tonight she did not visit the library. Tonight she had not brought a candle with which to read, and she didn't have the courage to sit by herself amidst the silhouettes. Instead she ended up outside his door, like her feet had drawn her there on purpose. In the endless expanse of an unlit corridor, so eerily still she could distinguish her own heartbeat, this door stood out from all the others. It was welcoming. Rapunzel knocked as loudly as she dared, hoping against hope that he might hear.
Eugene was lying in bed atop the covers, eyes half-lidded, a book resting upon his chest. The words printed upon the page before him were swimming, so he had been listening to the quiet noises of the city and trying to fall asleep. Each time he was about to drift off, however, he would have very treacherous thoughts regarding the dead of the night and the fact that it was the perfect time for a dashing rogue to rob a magnificent castle half-blind and be away with a lifetime's worth of unimaginable riches before the sun even rose.
Now a different noise reached him, clearer, brighter and closer. He sat up and looked around blindly. It seemed to be coming from the door. For a wild moment he wondered whether he should retrieve the frying pan he had stashed in the room in case of emergency. Running a hand through his hair, Eugene unlocked the latch upon the door and eased it cautiously open.
Emerging from the gloom she came, olive eyes somehow gleaming despite the nighttime shade. It was strange how the chattering in his head calmed itself. "Goldie?" He looked at her and then his eyes darted past her, into the corridor.
He was standing there, his shirt a little scruffier than usual, his boots removed, eyebrows raised. She smiled despite herself.
"I'm sorry Eugene, did I wake you?"
"Normally I'd say something about it being two in the morning and what did you expect, but actually… no. I couldn't sleep."
She glanced at her toes. "I just woke up. Could I come in for a while?"
Eugene was still considering the ramifications of the idea when she swept straight into the room without waiting for an answer. As she darted towards the window to assess his panorama of the city by night he conceded defeat, leaning against the door to shut it.
"Oh, it's beautiful," she was saying. "I think I like your view even better than mine. From this wing of the castle you can see more of the docks all lit up, and there's fewer trees in the way."
He came over to sit beside her on the window seat. Her hair was tousled from sleep, and her breath fogged up the glass ever so slightly. Eugene watched the fine mist evaporate from the heat of her body.
She pulled her legs under herself, twisting so she could see him better. "So how come you're not asleep?" Her questions were always so innocent, so wide-eyed and earnest, so eager for The Truth. Rapunzel's greatest ambition was to learn everything that one could possibly learn about the world. Sometimes Eugene wondered if he was a good enough teacher.
"You know, I really don't know. I guess my mind was just busy. First I kept thinking about lunch today, and how I nearly covered the Queen in salad dressing, and then I was trying to go over my table manners so I wouldn't forget them tomorrow…"
Evidently Rapunzel had spied something far more compelling than him on the bed, because while he was speaking she had sprung to her feet and gathered the object in question into her arms. An impish smirk was sparking across her face now.
"Aha! I see what you were really up to, mister. Reading, were we?"
"No!" A strangled noise.
"Ooh, The Continued Adventures of Flynnigan Rider. This looks interesting."
He jumped towards her but, little rascal that she was, she bounded away with the book held tight in her pixie claws. When she scrambled over the bed he followed, got tangled in the sheets, and fell on his face. She laughed and came to stand beside him, holding the book just outside his reach as she proceeded to read. "Flynnigan Rider was the greatest rogue that ever lived. He travelled the world in a silver ship, seeking adventure, fame, and riches. Wherever he went, he won the hearts of damsels and tamed mighty beasts. Nobody could ignore his bravery or escape his charms."
Eugene managed to prise himself free. He took the book from her hands, not unkindly, but when he closed it shut it was with an air of finality.
"I think that's a perfect description of you," she said after a moment.
"Hmm, all I need is the ship." He did not meet her eyes. He placed himself on the edge of the bed, where Rapunzel proceeded to sit beside him. From the window floated sounds of a sleeping city, the occasional hoot of an owl, the faraway breaking of waves upon the harbour, and the warming taste of a midsummer's night. Eugene's face was hooded in shadow.
"Eugene… you don't have to worry about living up to anybody's expectations." She was watching him quite intently.
"Ah, but that's just the thing. I do." He sighed, and his gaze raised to the ceiling, as if he wished he could glimpse through age-old layers of stone and marble to see the stars twinkling high above. "You're a princess, Rapunzel, and what am I? A thief. I'm certainly not the kind of person your parents expected to return their long-lost daughter. I don't belong here in this castle, a thief surrounded by treasure. The King and Queen are kind and polite, they've been nothing but gracious, but they're only letting me stay because of you."
Her eyebrows were furrowed, her eyes glazed by perplexity at thoughts she had never considered. Though she was trying to hide it, though her voice remained reasonable and calm, he could tell he had distressed her. "You could leave if you wanted to."
"No. No, it's not that. I didn't mean that." He placed a palm to his forehead, grimaced, and struggled to find the right words. How he longed to be Flynn Rider at this moment, rather than awkward Eugene Fitzherbert. "I'm sorry, Rapunzel. All of this is wrong. I just wish I could be the man who should have brought you home, a man worthy of your parents' respect, a man they don't have to be ashamed of." And quieter now - so quiet she could barely hear it, along with his eyes hidden behind the solemn shade of his eyelashes. "The man you deserve."
Rapunzel shifted beside him. She stared for a moment into her lap, as she sat on her hands, allowing a tiny sheepish smile to overcome her. Then she turned her head to look up to him, and in her eyes were reflected the lights from the city like all the hope in her heart. "I'm scared too, you know. Maybe you're not a conventional hero, Eugene, but you saved me. You'll always be a hero to me." And even as she said it, he could hear that she meant it, wholly and truly, with all the honesty of one of her unbreakable promises. "And my parents see that too, even if you don't."
Eugene felt a lump in his throat. He smiled weakly back at her and took one of her hands in his own. They sat like that for a moment, looking into each other's eyes, as a placid nighttime hush settled over them, together on the edge of the bed. What was happening to him? Here was the once mighty Flynn Rider, wooer of ladies, driven to awkward silence by this lovely young woman. No: that wasn't fair. It was not an awkward silence. It was not at all like the awkward silences when he was forced to converse with the snobbish nobles in the castle. Eugene felt comfortable to be with this like her, quiet but understanding, and when she squeezed his hand gently he had to smile in return.
She got to her feet and pulled him up with her. Still holding hands, Rapunzel led him back over to the window, where the night sky could be seen slumbering contentedly over the tops of buildings and gardens. The girl seemed to have an obsession with looking out of windows. Eugene supposed that she had done an awful lot of it, alone and dreaming in that tower. Out on the lawn below Eugene's room, the grass was such a deep green that it appeared to be dyed black in the monochromatic moonlight. Rapunzel gazed out through the glass, stark and bright against the dark background, lit by the moon's reassuring glow until an aura shone all around her as if a well-timed blaze of fireflies had just awoken in the garden beyond.
"Look, Eugene," she whispered, and he tore his eyes away from her to see where she was pointing.
The docks were swarming with ships. Even at night boats continued to moor here, arriving with their shipments till well into the hours of the early morning. From Eugene's window a strip of water could be seen down below, a small area of the sea surrounding the city isle where ships cut through the sleek mirror surface and the light from lamps danced in the trails they left like oil on water.
"It's like starlight," she said, all in a wondrous rush.
Eugene smiled a certain type of smile which only appeared when he was around her, a smile which would have gotten him teased mercilessly when he was a kid in the orphanage. "You really like the harbour, huh."
She turned to him, and the look on her face was golden. "It reminds me of you and me on a boat, watching the lanterns."
He didn't know how to reply to that. So often she would leave him this way, speechless from her perfection, her straightforwardness, and the way she found it so easy to speak the words which would have made him splutter and stammer. He shifted forwards to better reach her. His arm took her shoulders, and he drew her closer until they could sit together on the window seat, her small frame nestled in his arms, her head resting upon his chest. He pushed back a strand of her hair and pressed his lips to the milky skin just below the ear, a gesture that was halfway between a kiss and a nuzzle. She gave a quiet sigh.
When Eugene spoke, his voice was unusually low. "Well, you know why I was awake. What exactly woke you up at this ungodly hour?"
He felt Rapunzel stiffen in his embrace. "I had a bad dream."
Looking down, he nudged her to elaborate.
She sighed once again, but this time the noise was neither contented nor peaceable. "I keep having them. I don't want to seem like I'm ungrateful, or that I'm not happy. Everything that's happened has been more than I could ever dream. Seeing the lanterns, meeting my parents… it's like something from a fairytale. And it's all because of you, Eugene." She leaned her head back to look at him, smiling, and it gave her the strength to go on. "But I keep having nightmares about her. I can't stop them."
"Who?" he asked, although he already had a pretty good idea.
"My mother."
Eugene knew who she was talking about. It was in the way she said it, so gravely, and the regretful downturn of her eyes, with her hands clasped resolutely in her lap. Not the Queen, but her other mother. Mother Gothel.
Rapunzel loved the Queen. She loved both of her true parents from the moment she saw them. She had accepted them instantly into her heart, with all the effortless adoration of a child eager to make up for a childhood's worth of parental vacancy. But whereas her relationship with her father had blossomed easily and openly, the status of daddy's little girl quickly established through gifts and walks in the castle gardens and secret whispered jokes, her bond to her birth mother was somewhat more subdued. Unlike the King, the Queen had a figure in Rapunzel's life to replace. Eugene did not pride himself on his observational skills, but he could see that the Queen was a little more reserved around her daughter than her husband: she was less enthusiastic and more respectful, but distant, all of her actions reflecting the knowledge that her child had once loved a mother other than herself. She would excuse herself so she did not spend all day in Rapunzel's presence, as if allowing them both space to breathe, and was careful not to mention the woman who had preceded her. Naturally Rapunzel, who adored both of her parents in equal measure, did not notice much of this, simply attributing the behaviour to the personality of a mother she was getting to know. But the Queen's reasoning was right, in part. Rapunzel did indeed hold memories and love for a woman who was now dead. Both mother and daughter were joyful to be reunited after so many years, yet the barrier between them remained nonetheless.
"I miss her," continued the girl in Eugene's arms. "I… miss her so much. She looked after me and cared for me for eighteen years. And in return, I broke her heart. I killed her."
He took hold of her shoulders again, holding her firmly this time, forcing her to look into his eyes. "Rapunzel. You can't blame yourself for her death."
She blinked once, the sorrow in her gaze holding him like quicksand. "But she loved me."
Rapunzel didn't shout. Rapunzel rarely shouted. But the unnatural hush in her voice was worse than shouting, worse than screaming, far worse because he could see that she was trying to contain the quivering in her lip and berate herself at the same time. Eugene knew that the only thing worse than a yelling woman was a crying one.
"She stole you as a baby and kept you locked up in a tower, away from your parents and your kingdom, just so she could stop her hair from greying. I don't think that constitutes love."
All of a sudden she was pushing him away, and there was a large aching gap between them. "Don't say that, you didn't know her!"
Then Rapunzel stopped herself. She brushed back her hair from her eyes. She was shivering ever so slightly. Eugene could see the goosebumps rising on her arms as clouds swam away from the face of the moon. "I know, I know she was selfish and cruel, and she never let me believe in myself, and I know she did bad things… but she was also my mother. And I loved her, and she loved me." There was a teardrop leaving a silvery trail down one side of her face. She took several rushed breaths, trying to preclude more tears. Even when she cried she was adorable. Eugene had only seen her cry once before, and his heart strings swelled tightly in his chest. He hugged her close this time, brushed the droplet on her cheek away with a large thumb, closed the space between them with warmth and tenderness so she could not get away.
Quietly her voice emerged, muffled, almost as if a small creature was residing between them. He thanked his lucky stars that Pascal was not around. "Do you know what my mother did, Eugene?"
Eugene Fitzherbert shook his head. Rapunzel could not see, but she felt the movement.
"She sang to me every night. She told me bedtime stories. She baked me cookies, she brushed my hair, she sewed my clothes. She did all of that for me, and now every night when I close my eyes, all I can see is her body falling down from the tower, and I'm not there to catch her."
Mother Gothel was gone. Eugene was the one brushing her short hair back now. "I was the one who cut your hair," he said steadily. "I caused her death." He prayed she would see logic. Eugene could be sympathetic - he understood what it must mean to love a parent, even if he had never done so himself - but it was hard to feel pity towards the woman who had killed him.
Rapunzel sniffled, and he took the opportunity to carry on in a reasonable tone.
"She was a very old woman, even if she didn't look like it. You know that. She already lived her life. While she was alive you could never have been free." And that would have been an appalling injustice, though Eugene. Just imagining Rapunzel, all of her beauty and compassion and virtue, trapped in a tower for eternity because of one woman's greed was enough to make his blood boil. Even as a thief - a reformed thief, he would hasten to add - involved in a profession basically defined by its avarice, he knew that greed had its limits. It was a dark sin to keep an exquisite bird locked away in a cage.
"I should have tried to reason with her. Tried to convince her…"
"Rapunzel, she stabbed me! She was going to lock you in a dungeon!"
"Don't blame me for not hating her!" Her voice rose now, and it was the closest she had ever come to yelling. "It's not that I don't want to. I've never wanted to hate anything so much in my life, but I can't!" She shook her head once, stiffly. After the anger had dissipated, the deep-seated guilt set in. "I just can't."
They had both lost their tempers. They were both struggling with old emotions with secure roots; emotions that were hard to pacify, especially for the young and passionate, whose dispositions were more fiery than most. The world outside passed them the soothing and saline scent of the sea, as if trying to alleviate their intense spirits.
The newfound princess placed her head in her hands and stared out between her fingers. "I just want to see her again. I don't know what to do now she's gone." She was bewildered by so many feelings, each one of which bombarded her for attention. Love, anger, betrayal, mourning, joy, remorse, exhilaration. She had felt more in the past few weeks than she had done in eighteen years in the tower.
"I'm sorry," said Eugene, which was all he could say. He moved his hands up and down her upper arms, trying to warm the skin. When Rapunzel felt something she felt it absolutely: mind and body were so intertwined that her whole being would reflect the emotion, in the same way as a small child, so that she sprawled when she was happy and shrunk when she was sad. And now she was rigid to his touch, the dismay radiating from her body. With a painful twist in his heart he realised that it wasn't good enough. Inhaling, he thought back on all the Flynnigan Rider stories he had read and tried to approximate something his childhood idol might say in such a situation. "You've had to sacrifice a lot. I know it's difficult, and it's scary. But… you've also gained a lot too. You would never have been happy trapped in that tower forever. Change is always hard, but it brings with it joy and happiness as well." He kissed the top of her head, breathing in her sweet smell of soap and lavender from the garden. "Things will get better. I promise, Goldie."
The corners of her mouth twitched slightly at that. That was his nickname for her, and their little inside joke. Now that her hair had been cut and she was a Goldie no longer, he called her it all the more frequently.
In his lap she turned so she could wrap her arms around his chest, reciprocating the hug. Eugene loved the moments like this between them. Rapunzel was a huggy person by nature. He never thought he could find such pleasure in… well, just hugging, but he had grown to cherish the snug mould of her body against his own and the knowledge that like this, he could protect her from everything outside his embrace.
For a long moment they held onto each other. The dark room around them seemed to shrink back, all the darkness in the world fading away until it was just she and he against the windowpane, ringed by golden light like a corona, the ships far below and the sleeping townspeople and the servants in the castle all unaware of how the earth shifted on its axis in those seconds.
Then, after a little while Eugene coughed. Rapunzel opened her eyes.
He had turned his head to stare off into the distance. His expression looked like he had forgotten how to do long division and was trying very hard to remember. "You know that I… well, I want to be with you. Very much. More than anything, in fact." Rapunzel found it most amusing when this dashing rogue began babbling. "And I'll never leave your side, not ever. But what I mean to say is… you know, following the assumption that I want to be with you and that you want to be with me, assuming that you do, of course, what if we… what if we, you know." His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "What if I became king?"
They hadn't talked about this yet. They didn't talk much about their future, mainly because there was no need. And lately they had both been so busy in the daytime - or at least Rapunzel had, though Eugene kept himself occupied whilst she was taking lessons in etiquette and history, either by exploring the meandering streets of the city, brushing up on his swordsmanship with some of the castle guards, or playing tricks on Maximus. There was no time to dwell on the future. They were together now, and that was enough. Eugene didn't like to speak of such things, in case he might jinx it, but even despite the unlikelihood of such events ever occurring, it seemed to be a logical conclusion to make, and the mere though of it terrified him beyond level-headedness.
Rapunzel laughed like sunbeams breaking through cloud. "Prince consort."
"Gesundheit."
"No, Eugene, you wouldn't actually be king. You'd be the prince consort." She grinned. "I have had to read up on the laws of the kingdom."
"Oh. Well… I suppose that's not so bad."
She thought it endlessly charming when he was like this. Even though it had only been a few weeks, and even though he was still essentially the same Eugene he had been when he arrived, he still worried about his duties, his respectability and reputation, he worried if he was a good enough man to handle the responsibility which might be placed upon him. He had never had to deal with such thoughts before. It was a lot to ask of a roguish outlaw, to contemplate one day becoming king. Or prince consort, at least. Eugene worried about all the things Rapunzel knew he had absolutely no reason to worry about. What really made her heart glow was knowing that he was willing to give everything up and take on such burdens without question or complaint… simply because he wanted to be with her.
"You really should ask me first you know," she said casually, "before you decide we're getting married."
Eugene gave a short yelp, as though she had stepped on his foot.
"I'm joking!" Rapunzel stared up into his eyes, with the twitch of a grin, remembering another time when he had freaked out similarly; and then suddenly serious now, taking a hold of both of his hands, the calm in her voice lending sincerity to her words. "Eugene, you are brave, and loyal, and kind-hearted. Whatever happens in the future, I couldn't ask for anyone better to be here beside me. And there's nobody else I would want. Not even Flynn Rider. When I said you were my dream, I meant it."
How did she do that? How could she read him so easily? How did she know the exact words he needed to hear, every time? How did she know that with her gentle voice, her compassion, and the cute, particular and oh-so-endearing way she said his name, she would always melt his heart? Not only was there such innocence and brightness in Rapunzel, but there was also a touch of the regal about her, a sense that she was born to fulfil this role, and as she gained confidence he could see both sides of her self merging flawlessly, fluidly, like the sunny yellow and majestic purple of Corona's flag, into a fine princess with a heart of gold, this young woman blossoming before his very eyes.
Eugene Fitzherbert leant towards the princess and took her face in his hands. She came forward to meet him, happily, hurriedly, so that their lips met too, in a sudden rush of glorious delight. Her mouth melted against his like honeyed pastry. Her kisses were always enthused, exciting him like nothing else. No thrill of robbery could ever be as thrilling as Rapunzel: sweet, animated, overflowing with life. They pressed against the window. Eugene could feel the glass cold upon the backs of his arms. When she had to pull away for air, he bent to kiss her neck, and she tasted of sunlight itself.
"So did I," he murmured against her skin.
He realised, in the lull of that moment, that he wanted to be more than a thief.
Eugene and Rapunzel were together, in the city of her birth, her city, atop the castle atop the island, and the lights flickered below in a wondrous affirmation of existence. It seemed as if all those buildings and ships and streetlamps and candles were leading up to them, here, at the very summit of the world. As the night passed on the world around them did not change, but something otherworldly and utterly indescribable was growing in their hearts. And high above, the many celestial bodies in the sky shone knowingly at the simple naïvety of everything below them. Eugene drunk all of it in, all the treasure laying in his arms, until his heart had its fill.
Two young people remained awake in the castle on that particular night. It was a beautiful night. The thick evening noises hung heavy like velvet, placid and enshrouding around the lovers. Heady aromas from various plants in bloom continued to drift in from the gardens, uninvited but not unwelcome. And as always, the city was alive, surrounding them both with a sense of home the likes of which they had never experienced before: it was more than either of them had dreamed, and they discovered it together, in each other's arms.
The night may have been dark, but there were plenty of stars in the sky.