As promised, here is my Chiriko story. I just love this little guy, he's too cute! It's longer than what I normally write (Which isn't all that much anyway), but I'll give it a spin. Enjoy!

"When it gets dark enough, you can see the stars."

-Mackenzie Haley

Often times, when I've nothing better to do, I like to look up at the heavens-- and watch the stars.

Thanks to my unquenchable thirst for knowledge, I know more than most people in Konan could ever hope to conceive.

For example, I know that a star is born when contracting gas and dust becomes so hot, that atoms of hydrogen are combined to form helium, or a star.

I know that stars are just the result of gravity pulling large amounts of gas into a small space.

And that wishing on them just isn't logical.

I know all this, and yet...

I still feel that those shining, shimmering lights in the night sky are more than just that. Like something more than you could read in an old science book.

When I was little, nii-san and I would go out on cool, crisp nights-- when even mom was fast asleep. We'd lie down on the soft grass, and he'd tell me all the constellations he knew.

There would be Orion-- the hunter-- and his two hunting dogs. There would be Cassiopeia, and the Big Dipper. Taurus and Draco.

Of course, I'd always beat him to mine-- Hydra, the snake. Even now, that's the first one I see every night.

My favorite thing was to just look up and marvel at the vastness of it all. I'd watch them; fluctuating, expanding, fading...forever changing. And I remember thinking one night: Me, too. I wish I could change. I wish I could be strong.

But wishing only gets you so far.

To me, those stars were taunting. Beautiful-- but only at a distance. Sitting for the world to admire-- to wish for-- but drifting just out of the myth about Tantalus, punished by the gods, banished to an Underworld pool, where food and drink were eternally just out of his reach.

Me, too. Forever yearning, stretching, but just out of reach. My mark-- Cho-- means just that.

Yearning for what, you ask?

And I'll answer you truthfully;

To be accepted.

The quote was actually on a poster at our school. I liked it.

Anyway- good or bad, tell me what you think in a reveiw.