(AN: This is a story I've basically thrown aside. I reread it, realized it was way too melodramatic for my taste, and that I can't bring myself to work on it anymore. I definitely prefer "A Star Falls," which is a one-shot fic... and I think it conveys the gentle melancholy I was aiming for much better than this fic does. However, I looked back and realized I had a few other scenes written that have points to them I like. So, I'll post those chapter scraps.)

(3.1)

I was finishing up some drills with the soldiers when I heard Wei Yan grumbling to fellow officers. He had a right to complain; Zhuge Liang disliked him, and acted upon that dislike by giving him tedious, undesirable tasks. They have despised each other for as long as I can remember. Usually I'm sympathetic to Wei Yan; but as I heard his complaints, I felt anger churning within me.

"… why should the entire campaign depend on one man's health?" growled Wei Yan. "If he had given me the troops I asked for and allowed me to attack the Wei forces from one direction, while he came in another, we'd have captured the capital long ago. I admit he was brilliant when he was younger… but now I think he's getting senile. His orders have gotten us nowhere."

"Wei Yan!" I stepped out from the crowd of soldiers, fingers clenched around the hilt of my scythe. "How dare you speak that way! If we achieve victory, it will be because of his efforts. Watch your tongue!"

He appeared startled to see me, but he only scowled. "'If we achieve victory'?" he repeated. "So, even you've begun to doubt him."

This stung more because it was true, and it made me angry. "How dare you," I growled. "Such talk demoralizes the men, and in no way helps deal with the problem of Sima Yi."

"Sending me out everyday to whine at Sima Yi is no help, either," snapped Wei Yan. "The Prime Minister does it only to spite me. You know this, and do nothing to stop him!"

"You have your orders, and you will obey them. And if I hear anymore of this treacherous talk from you…" I pointed my blade at him. "You will answer for it."

He snorted, but wisely did not reply, and turned away from me.

"Be patient awhile longer," I told the men. "We will capture the central plains, but Sima Yi is a cunning adversary; we must not act rashly against him."

"Does our glorious Prime Minister have some wonderful plan to help us accomplish this?" demanded Wei Yan.

I glared at him, but his question was one that demanded an answer, for the soldiers were looking to me expectantly. I drew in a long breath, and then said, "When does he not? Of course he has a plan. You'll learn it soon enough. For now, just follow your orders."

Wei Yan appeared unconvinced, but the soldiers were somewhat more gullible. Many of them had campaigned with Zhuge Liang long enough to know that his strategies were almost unfailingly reliable.

I only hoped that would prove true this time…

(3.2)

So many moments strung together form the whole that is a lifetime. These moments hang like stars in the emptiness of memory. They are precious; from them we form a picture of who we are, and who we once were.

I cannot but compare my husband now to the man I knew three decades ago. How very much the same he is… and yet how completely different. He has become like a stranger to me. There is a particularly vivid moment burned into my recollection. It is so trivial, and yet at the same time it defines my memory of him then. I do not know why, out of all the time we shared together, this particular incident remained so precious to me. Such a small thing, really… Silly, and rather sentimental. Yet when I look at us now, and view from a distance my husband's tent… I remember it, treasure it like the dying embers of a fire about to go out.

It was the dead of winter, and snow covered the cottage. That night we were huddled together in the main room, reading by lamplight from various texts. The house was cold. We shared a thick blanket, draped round our shoulders; it and our body heat kept away the chill. The hour grew quite late, near to midnight, and I felt my eyelids growing heavy. I set down my book, but I had no desire to leave the warmth of the blanket, cross the freezing house, and retire to a frigid bed. I yawned, and leaned against my husband, thinking to go to sleep whenever he did.

He absently stroked my hair, his fingers gentle along my skin. And then… it seems I fell asleep, for next I knew I felt groggily aware of a pain in my neck. I lifted my head, wondering at my odd position, and realized I was still lying out in the main room with him. The lamp was burning much lower. He was still reading.

I got up, resigned then to the inevitability of crossing the freezing house, and retired to our room. Sinking under the cool blankets, I wrapped myself up and waited to feel warm. From the level of the oil I knew several hours had passed, and it was the dead of the night. It was not all that unusual for my husband to find something so interesting in his studies that he will neglect sleep, and I assumed he would read until he finished or until morning. In fact, he came in shortly after I did.

We both rose rather late. It wasn't until I was preparing breakfast that it occurred to me that Zhuge Liang had left his text unfinished. Yet I still didn't make the connection, and he himself said nothing. It was only later as I was sitting huddled with a blanket around my shoulders that I remembered.

I had been sleeping on him. Had he risen to retire, he would have woken me. And… it wasn't something I wondered. It was something I knew – he had continued to read for several hours so as not to disturb my rest. Into the dead of night, by the waning lamplight, just so I could sleep peacefully.

It was the sort of thoughtful thing he would never have mentioned, and when I brought it up he smiled and insisted he had enjoyed reading and hadn't wanted to stop; but I knew from the affection in his eyes the truth. A small incident, but it remained with me… A spark of warmth in the memory.

My dear, how much you loved me then…

Things have changed between us. We have grown far apart.