Submission (#868) Approved

Turquoise blue eyes returned his gaze, but they could not compare to the "stars" that dwelled in the lake.

Boreal was sitting in a small wooden pier on Lake Silveil, contemplating the serene swaying of the waters. He used to come to this town during the months when Strynhalde was covered with a much thicker blanket of snow. Boreal did not have so much fur or so much mana to protect himself from the cold. And the fewer mouths to feed, the better. So adults used to send the little ones to other regions. Boreal had always chosen Silveil. The eternal night fascinated him, he felt as good as home, only less cold and surrounded by a more bewitching kind of magic, not as feral.

Sometimes he wondered if he wasn't wasting his chance to visit other regions. But those doubts disappeared whenever he got off the boat and looked up, finding himself surrounded by an immense galaxy. At Strynhalde, Boreal's favorite natural phenomenon was the aurora, among thousands of light games on ice crystals, but Silveil's dark blue and mauve nights and celestial bodies were not far behind. And besides, it was a break from seeing infinite white against the landscape.

Boreal stayed in a small house with the other kittoms from Strynhalde. This was the same house every year and they didn't have to pay for accommodation, so they assumed that it was a kind of shelter for the children of the winter region. The way of life of their companions was very varied, there were those with parents, those with adoptive parents, or those who lived alone. In the first two cases, their caretakers provided the kittoms with money for food, but the latters had to make a living and work. Some brought typical objects from their home region to be sold, others looked for small jobs. Boreal... He didn't know anything about his parents, but he was liked by everyone. He managed to get a room at the hostel in exchange for working as a kind of guide for the customers. Boreal could predict with great accuracy when and where the aurora would be seen, based on the color of the sky and the weather and environmental conditions. He also had a good knowledge about the area nearby, so he could choose the best routes... But that's another story.

What was he doing then at Silveil? The way of moving and exploring Boreal was more adapted to snowy landscapes, he could not take advantage of that ability here in the dense forests. So he would just... tell stories. He worked as a troubadour. Years of interacting with tourists and his mysterious and exotic charisma had stylized his language. In his homeland he had heard countless stories from the elders who gathered at the campfire or who frequented the hostel, not only from the land of ice, but from all over the Eyrie. And at Silveil he had learned more local deeds, which he recited to the elnins who rented his services when they went for a ride across the beautiful lake in the center of the capital. Tomorrow he would start, meanwhile he would only contemplate the bottom of the lake, which was like a celestial dome where the heavenly white jellyfish played their role as stars? Heavenly white?

Suddenly, the bottom of the lake began to light up with thousands of bright colors. Boreal stood up in one jump. Goldfish? Perhaps... He was confused by the colorful spectacle, until suddenly he understood and looked up at the sky. They were not goldfish, they were real stars of thousands of colors falling over the lake, over the city, leaving pools of light wherever they landed. It was a beautiful phenomenon. Boreal laid down again over the pier, not knowing whether to look at the sky or at the reflection of the lake. He thought he should find out what was causing this strange event, but there would be time for that later...