Stella had never believed in the Deity of Light nor all its different manifestations. Oh, she might have, once upon a time, but that childlike belief had diminished along with her familial situation, so far gone that it was almost impossible to believe they'd ever loved each other, even so long ago.

When she met Bloom, it threw that into doubt.

Bloom... burned. There was no other way to put it. Stella was the suns and stars and moons; she'd known this since the first time she'd transformed, the first time she'd told her disbelieving parents that she didn't want to choose only one of the three traditional Solarian pathways. Combined with the Scepter of Power, she was, quite possibly, one of the most powerful fairies in the dimension (not that she'd ever let it get to her head, not when her mother was so hard to please...), and she hadn't needed faith to get her that far. Fate and destiny and hope were for less logical people, those who still had stars in their eyes and suns in their hearts. Stella both admired and hated them; couldn't they see it was all for nothing, their precious little hope? They all died in the end anyway, thrust into the dark void, never to come out.

Stella was the suns and stars and moons, but Bloom was fire incarnate.

Bloom was life and hope and a dreamer and believer and try-harder and do-better. She was optimism folded over strength and so, so powerful. When they'd first met, Stella had thought she could get drunk on the magic Bloom leaked, the power she'd never learned to control.

When they'd first met, Stella, though she liked Bloom, had thought she was a fool.

("What's the point of hoping?" Stella had asked, particularly depressed during the Siege of Magix. "We're born to die, after all."

"Does someone compose a song for it to end?" Bloom had demanded of her, still so achingly bright, even without the Flame that had burned behind her eyes. "Does someone write a story for the conclusion? The finale might be amazing and beautiful but it means nothing without the journey. We're not born to die, Stella, we're born to live!")

She hadn't thought that for long.

Bloom had often felt that she would float away if she cared a little less.

Earth was amazing and beautiful, and so was humanity, she'd often felt that it just wasn't enough. Something burned in her chest, bright and all-encompassing, and if only she could grab onto it without it slipping through her fingers she would know.

She didn't know what she would know, but she knew, you know?

To anyone else it might've been a little confusing, but to Bloom it was the only way to properly express what she felt.

The year before her eighteenth birthday, the fire in Bloom's chest was pulsing in a strange, frantic sort of way, and her behavior became increasingly erratic. When finals rolled around, she subsided a bit, focusing all that strange energy into studying and getting good grades, and it had worked, not to mention the relief when her acceptance letter had come, and everyone had just brushed it off as the stress of hovering between teenager and adult.

That summer it had returned with a vengeance.

Bloom had nothing to focus on. She begged her parents for a vacation to somewhere other than the beach they went to every year, something that could distract her from the pulsing, but they couldn't afford it. She lost Mitzi as a friend, broke it off with Andy, distanced herself from Selina - by the end of the second week of July everyone in Gardenia knew something was wrong with Bloom Peters, they just didn't know what.

Then Bloom met Stella, and the fire in her chest unfurled itself like the beginnings of a forest fire. I know you, whispered the fire. You're like me.

Stella was the sun and moon and stars, and Bloom had never felt so relaxed with anyone. Soul sisters, Stella called them cheerfully, masking the look in her eyes that was not the sun and moon and stars but the empty darkness of space. You and I, we're soul sisters.

Well, Bloom thought as she helped Stella see the beauty of life that she'd always known as truth, that the fire had always told her was truth, as suddenly Stella became her tether to the ground, as she suddenly didn't feel like floating away anymore - I always wanted a sibling.