[Shilukk]

At any given time,

there are roughly two-thousand-two-hundred-and-fifty stars in the sky.


Of course, that necessitates that the conditions are clear, and this only counts the amount
that I can see from atop the wall behind the church, but I still think that's interesting nonetheless.
Does someone else in a different place look up and see the stars like I do? Do they count them, biting
their lip, wondering the same? Wondering if anyone else feels what they do? Wondering what'd
be like if they were born as someone else? With another name? In another place?

One time, I saw two-thousand-five-hundred-and-thirty-six. I think that's a statistical anomaly,

since every night when I count them, it's always been anywhere from two-thousand-and-fifty-three to
two-thousand-four-hundred-and-eighty-seven.
I wonder what those forty-nine stars are doing, now. I wonder if they're happy, where they are. I'm
envious of that.

In Unreality, the numbers skew. It's closer to one-thousand, and I could only see three-hundred-and-thirty-three
from my window. Before father ordered me to leave the house and serve
Claire in the Ainsworth family's main branch when I was five, I could see so many more. Seven-hundred-and-fifty-five,
outside of a huge window. I couldn't count that high, back then. But I know that's the number.
I remember every detail of that place.
I thought that nothing could ever match it; my big window with the balcony outside. But that night with Claire, when
we snuck out of the house and sat on the bench under the tree on the cliff's edge, and I nursed the bruise she'd gotten
that day because she stood up for the stray cat I'd found when the Master wanted us to get
rid of it, I said—


"I wonder if I'll ever see something prettier than this?"


I don't remember what Claire said to me then. I think my ears were still ringing. But
I bet it was smart. She's always been smart. She tells me that I am too, but
I don't know about that. I still throw up when I see blood or cry when someone I like gets hurt, so even
if I am "smart", aren't I already behind?

I dusted off my uniform early in the morning, and woke her up. I don't know how long
I slept, but we were alone when I opened my eyes, so it couldn't have been more than an hour.
A brief respite, but I knew that we would have to go back. That I, would have to go back. She
was the direct descendent of Blair Ainsworth, after all. I was just her cousin. And I'd
stay in the dark.
But one day, they told me we were both going to be baptized. And there it was;
a light. A little star, all for me. Only a handful of days after my sixteenth birthday, I would be baptized into the church,
and from there, I could shine all on my own.

I sit atop the wall to the outside of my to-be prison, shrugging off the breeze so that I can see
the stars. There are two-thousand-five-hundred-and-thirty-seven, tonight. In the far north-east,
one of a marginally-different hue has appeared. I don't recognize it; how dull it is, how far
away it must be. Another statistical anomaly. A single, extra star. Another anomaly. Barely there, hundreds of millions
of incomprehensibly-large measurements away from me.

I wonder how it's doing?

I dust off my uniform, that marks me not as a servant, but as an individual
member of the Twilight Cathedral. And I stand atop the wall. Outside of here,
is a whole world I've never seen before outside the pages of a book. With big,
clueless eyes, I look out over it all. And I wonder if all stars get a view like this.
The sun rises, chasing away the stars I've counted. And in the rolling pink-blue-black that denotes
the break of dawn, watching light crawl atop the sky like our world is a treasure
once more veiled to the rest of space, I say—


"I wonder if I'll ever see something prettier than this?"


And another day comes.


This time, I'm excited to see what it brings.