Pirates, Princes, and Stars

chapter three

There has always been something about the stars that inspired humans to make wishes upon them. Very few knew that somebody was listening.

The Wishsmith set out that night, as he did every night, with his sack and his stick. His hip was giving him some problems these days. He was not as athletic as he once was. Long gone were his days of racing about the night sky, sweeping up fallen stars with the ease of a hunter on horseback. Now it was the laborious task of scooping low and picking them up one by one, dropping them into his sack.

After each star was collected, he returned home. His house was lonely but comfortable, located on the edge of the night sky.

"Let's see," he muttered to himself, settling into his chair. Every joint clicked like a lock. "I might be beginning to get old," he informed his cat, who rolled his eyes.

He fished a fallen star from his sack, and he put it on the table where he worked. Distilling a wish was a complicated thing. First you had to heat up the fallen star in much the same way blowers do with glass, or smiths do with metal. When the star is white-hot, it can be drawn out with special tools made from a rare form of iron. When at last the star has been drawn out into a long thread, the Wishsmith would put on his spectacles, and then his spectacles' spectacles.

"Oh!" he mused. "We have one from a mermaid."

-

Anahita woke drowning.

Water raced through her nose, her mouth, her throat. The more she gasped, the more she drowned. She kicked her tail out but –

Her heart twisted in disgust. Her tail had been split in two.

There was nothing to be done. She clawed the wall of her cave and pushed as hard as she could to thrust herself upwards towards the surface. She thrashed and kicked out with the useless mess that had been her tail. She swam with her arms, her chest burning, panic scorching through her body.

When at last she broke the surface, she gasped. Her chest heaved as she swallowed air. Her body shook as she coughed out seawater as she kept herself afloat through what strength she had in her arms.

Slowly, Anahita swam to the shore. She dragged herself onto the sand, clawing fistfuls of it, using her arms to pull her useless lower body up. She flopped down at last.

The tide lapped behind her.

She lay there, chest rising and falling as she stared up at the stars. She was too exhausted to think.

The sky was so vast and brilliant from the shore. Humans had different names for each of the constellations, Chamber had told her. Her eyes drifted to Naia, a constellation of a fearsome sea spirit who took the form of a rolling tide to trick fishermen. It was named for the pattern it formed in the sky as it descended through the celestial sphere, churning like a wave. The humans, Chamber said, called it The Plum. Because it looked like one.

Anahita squinted, trying to see how that could possibly be a plum.

Her eyes drifted to Cernaed, named after a beautiful sailor. She traced the stars that formed his arms and chest and legs. Frowning, she raised herself onto her elbows. Her wet back was caked in sand. Perhaps her knowledge of astrology was wrong, but one of the stars on Cernaed's boot appeared to be missing –

Anahita screamed.

Her tail. Shit. She had forgotten about her tail.

She scrambled backwards as if she could run away from it, but the two severed pieces of tail followed her, kicking like legs.