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wilbur once knew the names of all the stars. he had molded them into something considered perfect, and he had named them all. billions of centuries that passed by has long since dulled the god down, and now he couldn't bother.
his name is karl, and he is a star.
karl is not the name that was given to him, that was whispered to him from a mouth that had kissed upon cosmos, had inhaled supernovas and breathed out new life, but it is the name he chose.
karl has been here for a very long time.
he is not a bright star, like polaris, who burns and burns and it hurts when they try to touch him. nor is he apart of a group that forms a constellation, created for the purpose of being something together. instead, he is a small star, lost upon millions of others.
they all will burn out and explode, karl has witnessed the same happen to others like him. death is inevitable, and the stars are made to accept that. he does not fear for his doom, nor does he care much that he is not special. mortals can be horrid, and being noticed by them would be worse.
karl's home is wide and expands farther than he can know of, but he does. he hangs in the sky, a pit of heat churning in his chest and growing until he'll one day explode. he watches, with forked lightning in his veins and glass cutting up his mouth.
he has been watching the mortals for so long, and he learns. learns of their customs, weird as they are, and adapts.
everything is born without 'pronouns', but karl quite likes the ones he chose. for stars were made colorless and bland, formed out of so much emotion but in the end born with nothing to make them special. it feels nice, to go against the boundaries set against someone who he hasn't heard for a long, long time.
wilbur used to sing to them, words washing over the whole sky, captivating all of creation. and karl would feel himself drift, for his creator had such a lovely voice.
he doesn't though now, he abandoned them.
karl has not been around for nearly as long as the others have, but he is certainly not new. he has been through many lifetimes, seen as mortals evolved further and further. he is proud, and everyday since some part of him has ached to feel grass under his feet, to breathe in air and feel alive.
the stars have cradled him close from day one, they press in on him and teach him the ways that they sing and scream and laugh. the feeling is not claustrophobic, for these are his kind and he knows that they are made the same as he.
when you are created, you are never alone. your brethren live among you, and they hear everything.
it is not a hive mind, no. rather, it is something different.
karl was raised by other stars, bigger and brighter than he will ever be. vega would card a hand through his curls, making them gravitate towards the blue star. antares would tap his freckles and laugh whenever he would swat them away. karl does not belong to a small group, but he does belong to the stars.
the pleiades, or seven sisters as they are known as by the mortals, are both loud and quiet. they are the significance of a new year, something important and new (although they do not change much). they don't interact much with the other stars, too tightly clustered together to even think of that. they were made sometime ago, but they do not get sad. they do not really do much.
sometimes, one of them dulls and the sky gets darker, or that may just be a trick. his brain is rusty, not at all how it was when he was first formed.
"a name, you deserve a name." a voice had whispered, soft and raspy, so much power contained in such a human voice.
for karl had been created when wilbur still named his stars, his creation. a symphony, flowing and dying and never to be finished.
he does not care for his name, for it is the name gifted by his cruel creator, one whose silver tongue swept them into bliss naivety and hands contorted his own fire into them.
his creator is a fool, for he created the stars with enough intent to make them alive.
karl does not have the rage that he had once had long ago, the one that used to burn in his throat and push against his tongue. but sometimes, when he catches a glimpse of wilbur walking amongst the stars that hang low in his region, he would like to punch the living daylight of him. have his fists pound against him until visions of his creation burn into his vision.
wouldn't that be ironic, the creation destroying the creator.
karl does not know of him, but there is a one called bad. he is a god of something akin to familiarity, to home, to comfort. (gods are silly, for they rule over the smallest things and yet are praised for that.) bad catalogues everything, all cooped up in the Hall.
files upon files sit nestled into every corner possible, reaching high enough that if karl focuses he could brush his hand against them. there are many, and bad works all day, and only leaves when the cursed one with diamonds digging into his skin drags him towards their home that they built with love and laughter.
karl has no doubt that in those files, the name of every star is listed. probably in that same small, loopy handwriting that karl managed to see when he caught one of the papers.
he knows that his name is there, along with information about him. sometimes karl wonders how bad knows, but then realizes that it is the god's purpose to know.
it is reassuring almost, to know that he is not forgotten. that he does exist outside of this colorfully dark scape.
and it is july nineteenth when karl decides, no, knows that it's time.
so he presses his burning fingers to his lips, an echo, a promise, words that he cannot explain no matter if he has every single word in every language at his use, and he leaves.
everything is burning, like the fire encased in his soul has finally been set free, and flames lick at his arms, cradle his face, press in on his neck and tell him to learn how to breathe. learn how to deal with the pressure for this is what he wanted, wasn't it?
if he fails, will he turn into a supernova? his fire instead painting itself in colors of purple and black and bright colors that are contained no longer. will his kind weep for him, or brush him away as another that has finally died out?
the pain is gone suddenly, like water was drenched over him and had cooled down the ever present flame.
he panics, for he is alone, and he has never been alone before.
he had always been the stars, a plural being combined with dozens of yelling lights.
now, he was just karl, an immortal with all the time in the world.
--
karl has a body. he has freckles that splatter across the bridge of nose and the jut of his cheek. he has legs that bend and move when he wills them to. he has hair that hangs over his eyes and tickles his face. he has a long scar that runs across his chest, looking like someone randomly painted a streak across him with a paintbrush and let the paint drip down till it dried.
the scar thrums with magic, magic that runs through ever part of his body. the magic curls up in his lungs, and rushes through his veins, and sits behind his heart. waiting and waiting and always there.
it is hard to adapt. karl has never been alone, but when he wakes up he is.
the waves rock his body gently, guiding him as though he was as light as a feather. something presses against his skin, and he feels dull like he never has before.
karl blinks, and then raises his hand up.
it is a almost peach color. he does not connect the dots, does not form the picture in his head yet.
his whole body is tingling with something akin to power, dug out of him and then laid out in this new form. he feels disconnected, like his plug had been pulled.
sand digs into him, wet and uncomfortable to feel.
but oh, he can feel.
the smattering of stars above felt like a hug, like his kind were dancing and clapping and telling him 'you did it! you did it!'
and he did, didn't he?
from here, he could also see the moon, glowing and looking down on him. or maybe that was just his imagination.
he remembered antfrost, the moon god. always looked sad talking to the stars, although he would cradle them as they were his own. antfrost was lonely, he had confided to them once.
lonely, lonely, lonely.
karl had never felt lonely before. he had always been with his siblings, his kind. hung up in the sky, together always.
antfrost was surrounded by them, so many of them. he still felt alone.
alright, pull yourself up karl. you can do this, you can.
with that thought in mind, he hoisted himself up on his elbows, wobbling for a second before keeping steady. that was good, a start.
the pounding of his siblings voices were no longer in his head, but he heard them anyway.
he shifted so that he was crouching, and did almost tumble there, but stopped himself. alright, just one more thing, you can do this, you can do this.
"|| ᓵᔑリ ↸ ℸ ̣ ⍑╎ᓭ ꖌᔑ∷ꖎ, || ᓵᔑリ ↸ ╎ℸ ̣. ∴ᒷ ᓵᔑリ ↸ ╎ℸ ̣." karl whispered to himself, voice hoarse as he spoke his native language.
slowly, he started to stand up, until he finally was. he leaned to the side, and then to the other, until he finally collapsed. nonetheless, he couldn't help his mouth from turning into a wide smile.
holy shit, holy shit.
a laugh bubbled from his throat, and although it kind of hurt he couldn't stop laughing. to anyone else he would look like a crazy person surely, but he didn't care.
--
when karl finally moved from his spot antfrost was slowly descending from his watch on the sky, and velvet was taking his place. he had never watched the sunrise from earth, had always been a part of it, could have colors of tangerine and magenta and violet wash over him and fill him up. but from below, it was like the sky was painted chock full of colors, fading into each other to create an almost dreamy effect.
there's salt on his skin from the spray of the waves next to him, and sand clinging to his scalp, but he pushes himself up. pins and needles shoot through his body, but he keeps walking (even if he stumbles and falls far too much).
he doesn't know where he is, doesn't recognize much of anything here. all he knows is that he's at a beach, and he's alone.
bunches of greenish-red succulents explode in growth by the sea side, and the colors looked bizarre to karl, more of a brown color than what he’s been told. odd.
it feels like every cell in karl's body is buzzing to life as he moves, feet slightly aching as he steps on stones lying on the beach floor. like there's thunder in his chest, echoing the ache that burns his soul, piercing through his core. the beach is empty, no one there besides for him.
what becomes of us once we’ve been torn apart and returned to our future, naked and small, sewn back together scar by scar?
karl is about to find out.
--
eventually, he manages to stumble his way out of the beach and into what looked like a town plaza. there were lights strung about the small area, people behind stands trying to sell to anybody walking by. the smooth stone under his feet spirals into a pattern, and it feels like it's almost acting as a balm to his heart, soothing it as best as it could. there weren't as many people walking around as there should be, but that might just be because it's nighttime.
karl was stopped by a gruff-looking fisherman, who furrowed his brows at his bare feet and handed him a pair of shoes. they were boots, the leather worn but karl thanked the fisherman all the same.
his curls are uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze as he walks, small gardens hanging on windows bursting with peonies in sharp colors that make his head spin. it feels so weird to be..well, alive . one part of him wants to embrace it, wants to laugh in joy and dance around with his newly found body. the other part of him wants to throw up, wants to crawl his way back up to the stars and beg to be let back in. he doesn't want to be alone anymore.
and the thing is that it is weird, his skin throbbing like the streak of a meteor through rain, like he is teetering on a knife’s blade and wondering which wound will hurt more, less. feeling breaths enter his lungs, and then easily escape, and then back again is terrifying . he wants to rip his own skin off, wants to dig his fingers into his skull and wretch it apart. how is he doing this? how is this happening ? how do humans live like this? his chest aches with some sort of odd feeling, one that feels like his chest is tearing itself apart. he feels brittle, like karl is going to collapse and fucking supernova. except he isn't, not anymore. instead, the air around him devours him and presses against him like comets that flare against his skin and orbit the bones.
it is like his very soul is dripping, smooth glass melting with the heat of his fury. like his whole body is being caked in sorrow and it is flaking off, slowly, gently, roughly, terrifyingly slowly.
karl wants to commit his anxieties to the sky, where he knows his siblings are, where he knows he belongs. he is a imposter in this tender body, with far too much meat contained in it. if he tears apart the gentle stitches of the gods, what will remain underneath? a star with pointy tips, a big ball of brightness, ready to destroy.
he crouches in an alleyway, tugging at his stupid curls, that are smooth beneath his fingers, and if he clenches a large chunk of it sand will dust his palms. the boots he got from the fisherman scuff against the ground, as he weeps in gulps and breath-stretching howls. unsteadily, like a baby being born and instantly being taken away from its mother, unsteadily, like the tides of the ocean once they swallow the ships of determined ones far too ready to die and unprepared to live.
he's losing in a staring contest with whatever is above, the stars, his siblings, his home. they are him and he is them but they're not one and he's inferior. the deafening silence of anxiety drowning out the prettiest sounds of this world he was towed to, two grey eyes close to the ground, his heart out on a tightrope.
nimbly, his fingers dig into his scalp. it is like someone is squeezing his throat, cutting off his oxygen and yet telling him at the same time to learn how to breathe.
it is like he is midas, but instead of turning things to gold when he touches something it starts to fester and rot, curling away from his touch and yet craving it all the same. he is rotting, festering, ad nausem. he is not human at all, at all, he is an imposter in this shell of skin and bones packed full to the brim with heartbeats and words and stupid ass wanting , selfish need against selfless want.
a cacophony laugh bubbles from karl's throat, a harsh mixture of sounds grating against his ears and bouncing around in his skull. it feels so wrong.
he feels like a body ready to pounce, like a snapping turtle catching its prey in its mouth, all previous awe of the world washed out by the ringing in his ears and the static clouding his vision.
there is a waft of ozone which fills his real-not-real lungs tightly, his hands small, soft things that clench each other like finding the thunder in a storm. the dread grows in his chest like a drop of a child’s fears, sticky and coagulated and thorny.
please make it easy, he prayed to the gods above.
he got no answer.
--
life, as karl soon learns, is a puzzle of sound and rhythm, life and hope strung on thought-lines like laundry. ephemeral strands with dimension, gossamer from a word-mill foundry. humans are odd, as much of treasures as they are monsters. karl likes to observe them sometimes, from his place on his hill that sits right beside the town. it overlooks the small place, and gives him a truly spectacular view that takes his breath away. (in the good way this time!)
humans have a routine in their little lives, and they always manage to follow it. it is aspiring, and so so very weird. often, karl considers marching straight up to the sky god and demanding to be let back in to his twisted little heaven rip-off, but always decides against it. rather, he clings to these humans hoping they'd both drown.
the cruelness of living snakes around his body, and so he learns how to keep himself alive. eat, sleep, walk around every once in a while. do not spill your thoughts out, do not tell your secrets. easy enough.
normally, the townspeople take one look at his sorry state and offer him a pitying smile and enough feed to last him for a while. he learns how to sample it, giving small enough pieces to himself to guarantee his survival. he crawled his way out of the sky just to appear on hell but he's damn well not going to waste it.
when morning sunlight hits the ridge of his ribs just right, they turn into mountains of fear and red cliffs that tip into soundless waves. arties, ironically, feel like volcanoes. smoking and filling with hot bursts that wrack his being and turn his blood, simply, to hardened lava. when humans live, it is something like that: damply alive, wild, and full of fear. one time, it rains, and karl lets it soak him to the bone, cracking the dryness of his throat and replacing it with an avid hunger, tongue dizzy with the taste of secrets whispered to him by the clouds, which beam in the sky.
humans have stories, and they have myths, and he has a sort of one-sided love-cherish-destroy-hate relationship with them. they are vile and disgusting, ruthless creatures with no care for how they affect each other, but they are also beautiful creators, sewing the world together with speeches straight from the heart and eyes full of the mind.
they speak of love and cities found and fractured, of buried gold deep underground, of a God ready to save them from it all. how rivers sigh when lost to sea, becoming full and whole once more, whiskey poured in cups supposed to be tea and art in golden frames and memories lost and memories found and all the forgotten names.
karl himself has found his memory slipping more and more, his past home starting to become nothing more than a blazing memory.
it scares him, but at most times he can't muster up any worry for himself, which is also scary.
the world is scary, he is scary, humans are scary.
once, he had passed two ladies dunking their laundry into a bucket, laughing casually and brightly. you know ben? well of course! oh, well he drowned last week in the ocean. i sure do miss him. oh me too, he was ever so handsome, what a shame. indeed, but have you seen miss mary? i have! let’s hope she doesn’t waste away too. you know they didn’t find his body? oh, marvelous.
it had sickened him down to his core. it was an abstract type of horror, and yet he had never been more happy to be alive. hurting like a human feels like a distant type of burning, and it fills his throat with feelings that are far from abstract.
the sky shines bright blue, stars out of sight. love is truly unfair, he thinks. wilbur has never thought about him even once, hasn’t he?
why do things always have to go and change? it'd be better off if things just stayed the same. karl supposes it's nothing personal, personhood has always seemed so strange. he just simply wonders about why humans live knowing that they are going to die. what purpose do they find in this life, what purpose do they find in living even when the world is going to shit, has been going to shit for thousands of centuries?
(of course it's personal, personhood has made him feel this way.)
one night, when his body is shaking and he is laying on that stupid hill with a basket next to him and the grass tickling him. and he thought ' i think that they know better than me '.
(did you know that the greeks in morning would eat oranges? they were firm believers in fruit-curing fevers and he agrees. see, they believe that an orange warms the stomach.)
and the flower petals, they told him that wilbur loved him. sadly, it doesn’t work that way. he has been bleeding stardust since he was made and he had never learned to love it until now. sometimes, the absence of love fills him like craters.
all his musing did was make his tongue sting from when he bit it staring at the sky, oh so desperate to tear himself apart. he woke the next morning, mouth sore from when the bloody juice had seeped between his teeth, down his throat, so bad that he can taste it even now.
he stares at the sky, digs blindly into the sun, searching for something he can see, but cannot grasp just yet. there is a certain flavor in his desperation.
what is all this pain worth? when he wakes, shaking and drenched in his sorrow where is his happy ending? where is his brazenness ready to embrace him whole? where is his karma?
karl walks through the empty town, it being far too early for anyone to be awake. humans are weird like that, deciding when they wake up. (death deciding when they do not.)
his boots scuff against the stone, the sound calming. that might change in the future, but it is not the future right now.
finally, he stumbles out of the borders of town, making his way back to that same beach. laying down, the white waves pushing against the keel of his body. gentle, as it turns his skin damp, kissing his burning-skin with salt.
the position is uncomfortable to say the least, sand digging under his shoulder blades and the small of his back. but he does not falter. and karl’s trying to smile, and schlatt’s trying to smile, and there’s nothing neither of them can do about the sky’s love.
karl shifted, eyes glazing over as he stared at that inky canvas, dripping with time and his memories, stars twinkling in his eyes. (stars do not twinkle, they burn .)
he stopped referring to them as his siblings a while ago, too aware of how that must not be true anymore, too aware of how he was not created from another human but from a single god. he was not made to live, he was not made for anything. what do the stars know, after all? what do they know other than what they can't, other than what they shouldn't?
there is shuffling from beside him, and someone crouches beside him, eternally patient as the ocean, hand dappled and spun with sea-foam as it rubs against his temple. it centers him in his physical body, and the stars quietly reach out to him. it is sun-flavored, crowding his iron lungs. being soft doesn’t lessen his fierceness, but it cools him into something unnatural, volcanic, igneous .
karl turns his head, catches the eye of the ocean god, tries not to choke on the salt-spray that whispers in his every breath. it is hard to look into his eyes without drowning, but he manages.
“hi,” schlatt says, something like awe in his voice, warm with amusement, “you’re still alive.”
well. he supposes he hadn’t actually realized that himself, but yes, he was indeed still alive. burning cradles him, steadies his breathing. “yes.” strength isn’t always loud.
“do you know why you are here?”
it is a question he has pondered a lot. one he knows the answer to, and can’t grasp it with all of himself. “i came here. i made it so.”
the ocean is lukewarm, tepid, soothing against his own burning. “yes, you did. there was no intent, i think, from your siblings to cause harm to you. after all, heaven has deadlier things to throw. but still, you are hurting. why?”
half iron, half dirt. he is filled with a tapestry of his own clumsy making. he has not bled yet, but he wonders what will be inside him, what has kept him together all these months. the cosmos, or blood? uncertainty or burning? there is an ocean in schlatt’s eyes, but he is staring at the stars in his soul.
“i don’t know.” the words crack and thaw inside of his already raw self. “are you hurting too?”
his fingers press like drops of rain against his temple, a sweet apology for his unmaking. there is a kind of magic in it, that karl himself had lost. schlatt wore the moonlight, and he was jealous of the way he shone.
“always.”
--
like sky, we all cry sometimes when thunder rages. like ocean, we all collide when it is too much. like stars, we all shine brighter before we die.
karl imagines it must be lonely, to protect his breakable heart, as schlatt often does. he has not been human for so very long, but the taste of loneliness is like a liquor that stains his tongue. dark, deep, and wanting.
sometimes, schlatt seems more like a meteor than an ocean. rejected from the sky, something made of more than just himself. learning how to chip away at the parts of him that belong to someone else.
“the ocean,” schlatt says, rocking like a wave, hands made to soothe as they rest in his hair. they are picking out the stars that have gotten tangled in his hair and are setting them free. “isn’t infinite, you know. it just seems like it is.”
karl doesn’t truly understand what the god is trying to tell him. every hatred in him, every fear, every loneliness and pain and warmth has all stripped him away and settled in his bones. they crack with every breath he takes.
all he can do is breathe through it, try to understand how that relates to him. what it means of schlatt. the pressure on his head makes him dizzy from the sandstorm in his mind, and he is glad that it is as kind as it is.
( go on, urges laughing cassiopeia from behind her nebula-laden clouds of dust, let go. you are still so young and wild. )
karl sighs, inhaling deeply and exhaling slowly as he stares at the stars. they may never be apart of him again, but he will always be apart of them.
i am learning to live, i am appreciating, i am happy, karl feels almost like the stars are laughing at him, not in a bad way, playfully, happily, proud of the little star they raised.
he hears cicada songs bursting out from somewhere too close and yet too far away, and feels salt in his mouth. his curls shift with phantom touch, an ocean’s caress.
humans are very, very odd, but he thinks he likes them. just a little bit though.
--
“am i not the one who got away?” he asks, bitterly, poison a thing that snakes through him like a tidal wave. “i escaped the sky, but at what cost?”
schlatt is ever-patient, ever-infinite. his smile is a crooked thing that dips into his skin coolly. “no, you’re not the one who got away. you’re the one who got it right.”
he has never thought of it like that. the reassurance is a balm to the pit of anger in him, steadily growing after thousands of years. the cap to a volcano, the water to the fire.
the sand digs into the grooves of his spine, and it is an anchor for his soul. he would like the god to tell him about the oceans and how they’ve changed in him. about lemongrass and the summer storms coming in off his shoreline. the waters that carved canyons in his bones, what does that do to a person? what does that form in you? the memories he made and the first breath he had on earth and the history that fills his fingers. the languages that he doesn’t understand and the ones he can’t pick apart from his own body.
it is easy to pick apart whom of which you find comfort in him. it is even easier to pick apart the one who is the opposite side to your own dark, burning fear.
maybe he will never be free. and there, of course, be the anchor.
--
there is a boy on the boardwalk who scowls at passing boats and digs his hands into the sand. his wings are soft and yellow, a sun wavering in the breeze, shifting with every motion. he is entranced.
the water laps against his feet, and he feels brokenly whole. he ate today. he drank today. his hands are not shaking. the burning has cradled him into calm.
“hello,” he speaks, the sky a template of rosy shores as the sun and the moon embrace. the boy turns, and his smile feels as though they have known each other for as long as life itself. “would you mind if i bought you a drink?”
being whole and full has a certain desire that all humans seem to crave. stars, as well, have the same craving.