It was odd how much could be defined from the stars above.
"Do you think when we fade away like the stars do that it will take a long time for everyone to notice?" As usual, his blue eyes gazed up at the sky, astronomy book forgotten by the young child.
"No, I don't think so." And she leaned closer, brown hair creating small waterfalls underneath her arms; it was the year before she'd cut it to just shoulder length and just months before he'd have to hold her as she cried.
"Oh, okay." He smiled and stared at her, "You're so pretty, prettier than every star out there." His smile was like a light calling her back home again.
"Not really." She muttered and tucked her hair back, the gentle breeze had wanted to take ahold of the soft strands again and leave them fluttering against her.
"You are." His smile only grew as he stared at her as a child would, "Your eyes are as green as the stuff that sometimes grows on trees. Your hair is browner than bark even."
"Moss grows on trees sometimes." She murmured as if the faint words would seal that away as she turned her eyes back up to the stars, tracing the beginning of a few well known constellations with her eyes, refusing to admit that his eyes reminded her of the bright ocean and his hair was like the hay at the farms in their small town.
"It does." Alfred muttered, not admitting at all that he did not know the word until she said it.
"Do you think Superman is living up there right now." He asked after growing restless at the pause in conversation.
Daina turned to him with a soft smile on her face, "Do you think he is?" It was gentle in the voice of a curious child.
"Yeah." Alfred murmured as it grew quiet once more; it made him think then that she thought so too, that he could be up there, waiting for them to brave any troubles and be their own superheroes.
Alfred sometimes wonders if she remembers that night the same way he does: bold, adventurous yet somehow gentle.
It was fitting in an odd way that when she clung to him, crying, telling him that her dad was moving out that it was underneath the starry canvas of the night sky.
He'd held her then as confused as a child could be with her long hair painting his side temporarily brown.
Alfred had tried to smile then yet couldn't as he whispered, "It will be okay," in the way that his mother sometimes did to his dad.
He wondered if she knew how his heart hurt so badly in his chest at the thought of her in pain.
Alfred still thought of her hair as steady bark that never yielded underneath the strain of life or at least he'd always seen her like a tree that stood so strong even by itself.
He held her though he only knew then that she had always reminded him of a tree yet knew not why she did; it seemed wrong for her to cry.
Daina was supposed to be the smart one, the one that held answers to everything, and the girl that was so unlike the other girls in class.
She'd rarely touched the dolls yet had always agreed to play cars or superheroes or anything with Alfred; she'd looked up to her father.
Daina had told him once before underneath the brightness of the morning sky that her father was smart, he'd went to college though her mother hadn't, and even about how strong he was.
She'd told Alfred that day that she was going to be just like him though now under the stars, she murmured that she didn't want to be like him anymore.
She didn't tell him that she wanted to be like her mother anymore; Daina cried at just the thought of her mother's tears on that day as the older woman told her with tear soaked eyes that her father really was moving out despite everything.
Alfred held Daina, because her father couldn't, her mother didn't know how, and because he loved the girl that was his tree.
She is his best friend, the only one he told every secret too, even the ones that he never told Matthew.
Daina had always been his partner, the one that would fight just as hard as he would, even when his eyes became the stormy blue ones of sadness.
He'd held her beneath the stars that marked their childhood, knowing more about the constellations than he ever did back then.
Alfred had tugged her closer there beneath those welcoming lights, and that was the night they'd kissed for the first time despite having dated for more than a month.
She'd laughed at the way he tickled her lips with his as they stumbled through the very new way of showing affection.
Daina had even laughed when he pulled away as her green eyes met his blue ones; he didn't think of her eyes as moss anymore, moss was gross and sometimes had bad bugs in it.
He told her now that they were like the beautiful green of leaves on trees before the leaves transformed into something grander or changed color.
She'd smiled as if ready to laugh the first time that he told her before she considered how romantic the thought could appear.
Alfred swore to himself that day with Daina happy in his arms that he'd never do to her what her father had done, that he'd never break her heart in that way or anyway at all that he could help as he always wanted to beneath the starry skies with her, feeling the joy of a love that had never faded.