Submission (#4119) Approved

"Welcome one, welcome all, to the Starfall Faire!"

Really, it was still ringing in his ears, and he was gladder than he could've said to be in Skyhaven, not Nalonalo. His first Starfall Faire, and what had he managed to do? Go to Ealei when every kittom at home dreamed of being there, for the biggest celebration in the year, right by the biggest festivities put on every year, and regret every single second of it.

Well, maybe not every single second. There was food, and shadows enough that he could dart in, grab a couple of kebabs, and dart back out again into the shadowed alleyways by the stalls, avoiding the main hustle and bustle and celebration. Corrupted Dusk, it was loud, and awful, and only part of it was because of the aching loneliness that stabbed him in the gut whenever he saw kittoms his age running around with their friends, playing games and sharing food and passing lanterns back and forth.

At least he had a pomu now, to share some of his food with. Said pomu tugged at a fistful of fur at his right wrist, squeaking loudly at him. He looked down at it, eyebrows raised but ears lower than they ordinarily hung. It squeaked loudly at him again, tugging at his wrist fur.

A flash of emotion passed through his mind, just enough to know that it wanted to go somewhere. He wasn't very good at telling what it wanted, despite all the reading he'd done on airships and trains and Aisling's caravan when the terrain advised against walking. He studied it for a moment, trying to decipher its squeaks.

"We're not going back there where there's so many people," he remarked, hoping it was the right answer to a question he didn't understand. "There are too many people, and we will die. You have been alive for two months. I have been alive for a time no one, not even me, can chart. We haven't lived long enough to die, and if we go back there, we will absolutely die."

His pomu made a huffing noise something like a deflating ball, sitting down with a plop heavy-sounding enough to almost squeak again. A flash of negativity, and irritation. Then the desire to go somewhere else again. Then a flash of companionship, and… It didn't feel like emptiness, like a lack of feeling, but something that would swallow every other emotion alive.

Lunarity paused, turning the riddle over in his head. "Slowly, now," he said. "Did I have the answer to a question you weren't asking?"

A flash of surprise, then warmth - affirmative. His pomu did not appear capable of nodding, given that the only thing stopping it from being perfectly spherical was its butt being relatively flat, but he thought it might be smiling.

"Was it a similar question?"

Again, the warmth. He wasn't sure how he felt about guessing games with his pomu, but he recalled a tactic like this, when those who transcribed all the ways kittoms could learn to communicate with their pomus better were desperate enough. "Okay. I'm going to say the question I think you asked, and you're going to stop me when I get it wrong?"

The surprise almost overwhelmed the warmth of it, but he twitched an ear. "You were asking if we could go back to where the people were-"

The sudden chill from his pomu was almost enough to make him fluff up his mane in the cold. "You don't want to go where the people are?"

Sweet, sweet warmth in the late Ealei summer night, at the top of the trees. "But you want to go somewhere else." The approval swept warmth from his horns to his tail, curled and knotted and probably with a few sticks still in it. He brightened.

"Lead the way?" he asked, and the pomu chittered, turning to bolt back the way they'd came. He laughed, something soft and chipper, and rose to run after them.

They raced together, just like the other kittoms with their friends, his pomu darting far enough to almost be lost in the shadows, pausing only long enough for Lunarity to catch up before running off again. He laughed between strides, running after them, before they finally slowed at a high crystal cliff, barely a jump away.

His pomu didn't share his deep-seated fear of the deeps, but they had established quite early on that it could be trusted to judge what might put him in the water and what might not. It had chittered and squeaked and stomped its small feet to get him to cross a bridge over a stream, and it had physically slammed itself into his chest once before he'd set foot on an older ship that had not three hours later sunk to the bottom of the bay, leaving Bellmoril. It wouldn't steer him wrong.

He jumped. He landed easily, feet firmly on the crystal spire, glancing down at the pomu. There was nowhere to go but back the way they'd came, now. It pointed out to the horizon, spanning half of Ealei, all falling stars and the great, wide, open sea.

Lunarity paused, surprised, only barely aware of his pomu diving into his shadow until it rose up again, a small box of Starfall treats it must have somehow bartered for on their last brave quest into the festivities, some two or three hours prior. It held the box out to him, and he opened it, smiling gently as he saw the deep-fried fruits and candies, drizzled in some orange-white sauce. He picked one from the box and threw it back, chewing and swallowing. His pomu set the box on the crystal, taking small bites of its own deep-fried treat.

He couldn't pretend the sea was anything other than terrifying, but the view of the falling stars here was almost as good as it was in Silveil, the birthplace of his pomu and strangely, one of very few places where he'd felt safe among a mass of people.

His pomu chittered. He looked down, and it pointed to the label on the box.

Happy Starfall, said the box, and he smiled to it in return. The breeze, warm still but with the scent of sweet Ealei summer, rustled the leaves behind and below them.

"Happy Starfall to you too, featherbutt," Lunarity answered. Maybe he wasn't as lonely as he sometimes felt, after all.