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For legal reasons, this is a work of fiction based on properties which I have no ownership.

Kiara L. Phoenix and her much-acclaimed fanfic Through My Eyes of the Great Mouse Detective canon of fanfics is an interesting case study. While far from the first to utilize a self-insert in her writings, the degree to which she incorporated her personal life and experiences, including references to her family, created for a compelling character unlike any other. TME is undoubtedly her most complete and extensive work, as well as being one of her earliest.

However, when Kiara began to draft a sequel—Across His Eyes—many years later, it met with disaster. Inspired both by the rediscovery of a dream journal she kept as a child and real life events that were probably occurring at the time, the sequel fanfic never got further than the first two chapters. It has been suspected within certain scholarly circles that Kiara's family were aware of her creative endeavors, and had intervened and stifled her creative choices in TME. Perhaps they convinced her to cease work on the sequel, deeming the material in the first two chapters too close to real life to continue.

However, that doesn't mean anything to me.

TME, as great as it is, has earned its sequel. Even if not penned by the original author herself, I am determined to see through what I consider to be an ideal continuation of the epic story Kiara began. I cannot claim that the following work is exactly what Kiara would've written, and indeed it will likely deviate strongly from Kiara's original intentions and plans. But just as Kiara was dedicated to putting all of herself into her creative works, so have I chosen to put great swathes of my own experiences and philosophies into this work, spiritually reaching out my hand in our shared interests and hardships, such as they are.

While Kiara Phoenix the Character was explicitly based on and an avatar for the real person who went by the same name online, in this fic Kiara the Character should be considered divorced from the real person. She is not representative of the real person, and neither are any references to her family representative of those real individuals. All portrayals and references to any and all real peoples are purely coincidental.

Readers are strongly encouraged to read Kiara Lee Phoenix's previous work, Through My Eyes, for the full context of the story and characters as they will be recurring in this sequel. While reading the incomplete edition of Kiara's sequel Across His Eyes is available at the reader's discretion, it is not considered necessary for this fic. A brief recap is provided thus:

Kiara has been having recurring dreams regarding a mysterious man with amber eyes, stepping on her head until it is squashed. While troubled, Kiara nonetheless resolves to enjoy her high school graduation with her friends, particularly her best friend AL. However, the celebrations are spoiled when she learns from her sister that their parents are seeking a divorce. Devastated, Kiara plans to stay the night with AL, and put off facing the situation at home with her family. While attempting to put both the divorce and the anxieties of her dreams behind, she receives a visit from her sister Hayley about some disaster unfolding, and Hayley's friend Kyrin being kidnapped. Before Kiara can fully digest the new situation, she herself is visited by the same whirlwind disaster and the familiar sound of Chipendale's gruff voice, before she suddenly finds herself on Ant Island, face to face with one of the residents.

Connect The Stars continues from here.

Kiara screamed.

The ant screamed.

They both screamed at each other, the sound reverberating off of the dirt and grass stems. Every other nearby ant turned their heads.

The screaming ant ran to the others, where they quickly formed up in a circle around Kiara. They muttered and whispered to each other, asking what she was, saying she looked like a human, but she was too small to be a human.

Kiara stumbled to her feet. "It's happening again. How is this happening again?" she whispered.

"What if she's a spy?!" one of the ants called out.

"That's right, I saw someone who looked just like her, stalking about our island last night!" another ant carrying a twig for a quarterstaff claimed. The whispers and mutters took on a distinctly more frightened pitch.

"No hang on, I just got here!" Kiara raised her voice. "This is a mistake!"

"The queen and prince-consort will know what to do!" an ant declared. Their words were soon echoed among the mob, chanting to take her to the queen and prince-consort.

"Stay back!" But they swarmed her anyways, their many four-fingered hands grabbing her by the upper arms, the legs, the torso. She kicked and flailed as she was lifted high above their heads, knocking into their twitching antennae. They complained and cried out when she hit them, but nonetheless moved forward as a mass. Across the bare dirt plain towards the rising ant hill, situated perfectly beside a tree large enough to hold up the entire sky.

I know this place, Kiara thought.

Up the hill, down into the tunnels and the spiraling ramp carved into the tree root and decorated with every manner of archaic carving. Kiara quickly lost track of the number of turns they took, up and down and back that way and circling this. Finally they reached a great antechamber, softly lit with scores of fluorescent mushrooms. At the head of the chamber stood an elaborate throne of small flowers and lilies.

Sitting in the throne, her thorax looking a bit more swollen than Kiara remembered from the movie, was Atta. Standing next to her with a grass sash draped across one shoulder stood Flik, blue-exoskeletoned and blue-eyed, exactly as Kiara remembered him from when she had been very small, and A Bug's Life had been a favorite of hers.

The mob deposited Kiara in front of them, and withdrew on the extreme end of the chamber, watching in googly-eyed silence. Kiara looked back at the ant royalty staring at her.

She gulped.

"Good gravy what is that!" The royal council fanned out on either side of Queen Atta and Flik: Dr. Flora, Mr. Soil, and the one who had yelled out—Thorny. Cornelius was nowhere to be seen, and neither was the former queen.

"She looks like a human child," Dr. Flora observed. "But, how could any human be so small?"

"I'm not a child," Kiara pouted. "I just graduated high school."

"The bizarre creature speaks!" Mr. Soil exclaimed.

"Alright, that's it!" Kiara stamped. "I have been intimidated," she stamped her other foot, "bamboozled by the emergency line," she kicked some clods of dirt, "beset by a homicidal chipmunk," she picked up another clod and threw it across the room, "kidnapped for the second time in my life," more clods went flying, and hit some of the mushrooms, "accused of skulking around and of being a spy," she turned and began to march towards the throne, "manhandled by what I thought were supposed to be a bunch of nice ants," she stopped short of Queen Atta, who didn't flinch from her gaze, "and insulted to my face! I demand you all let me go home this instant!"

There was a long pause filled with Kiara panting.

"I'm sorry," Flik spoke. "It sounds like you've been through a lot today. I can promise you we are nice ants, and we don't mean you any harm. This is a good colony."

"Yeah." Kiara took a deep breath and smoothed back her hair. "I know, not creepy or wet or mean at all. But then what's with accusing me of being a spy?"

"Well, you could be," Queen Atta said. "There have been reports of someone about your size and weight sneaking around Ant Island. It has all the colony on edge. Our suspicion is that the infiltrator is a remnant from Hopper's old gang—sorry, I mean a gang of grasshoppers that we've banished from our island. While you aren't a grasshopper, we can't rule out the possibility that they're… outsourcing their labor."

"Hopper?" Kiara backed up a few steps, descending the dais the throne sat upon. "Hopper's gang?"

"You knew Hopper?" Flik asked.

"Uh, well, kind of." She adjusted her glasses. "It's a bit hard to explain. He's definitely my enemy too though, we're not friends. He's not still alive, is he?" She shivered, and immediately felt ashamed for it.

"No no, goodness no," Queen Atta and Flik said at the same time.

"He's definitely dead, very very dead," Flik said.

"While at first we thought the entire gang had been chased off for good, recently we've had reports of the grasshoppers rallying," Queen Atta said. "That's why we need to be cautious, in case the grasshoppers want revenge and try to subjugate us again."

"Your Majesty, isn't that enough telling a stranger about our problems?" Thorny whispered to her.

"Oh! Right." Her face flushed a little. She drew herself up taller in her throne. "The real question we should be discussing is this: who exactly are you?"

Kiara shuffled her feet, and exhaled, twisting a strand of hair between her fingers. "Well... How do you feel about long stories?"