Plum

He doesn't want to be here. Looking at Plum, that's all they can think, watching the way he gazes upwards, the way he avoids meeting their eyes.

When he first came to the clan, they'd asked the starry, quiet one what to call him. It... was never entirely clear how the name had been settled on, but the clan had somehow come to the conclusion that "Plum" was the closest to fitting the strange being. It took weeks afterwards for some of the clan to gather up the courage to ask about pronouns. That conversation, at least, had gone better - or at least Plum's voice could be heard in the air rather than seeming to emanate from the space between thoughts - and they came away knowing that Plum truly didn't care what they called him.

It's obvious really, that Plum didn't hatch on Sornieth. It's the little things - the accent that's never quite right; the stars shifting on his wings, even when the wind is still; the way his flight has never seemed quite as labored as it should be, as though he glides not through the air, but rather among the currents of a long-dead star.

They've seen him sometimes - in the months, years, decades after that strange arrival - looking up at the moon on the darkest nights, when even the stars have faded. The clan notices his quirks, so used to dealing with their own, so they see the way Plum never seems quite comfortable in the darkness, the way he seeks the light of the stars and the moon. On those darkest nights, when Lady Shadow's blessing draws a veil over the stars themselves, some wonder why he chose to settle in a place that could take the stars from him. Or perhaps, they muse, he hadn't chosen. After all, why would he have ever chosen to leave the stars that clearly rest so deep in his soul?


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