Day One: Where Did They Go?
By: @
Draco981
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Leading up to and during the events of the Starfall Celebration, many dragons exalted to the Arcanist end up working to help prepare and run the festivities for the week-long event. But for the many young exalts that ended up as students in the school at the Observatory, the focus was on the major assignments piling up and due the last day before the Celebration began.
In a class for students much closer to hatchlings, however, the subject at claw was the reasoning behind the name of the Starfall Celebration itself, as well as the name of Arcane’s domain, the Starfall Isles.
The class was being taught by Edina, a Spiral rather recent addition to the teaching staff, having come into the field about as young as the job requirements would allow. She was trying her best to keep the class on track and her composure, which was far easier said than done given she had a class full of largely Arcane hatchlings.
“Now, the reason behind our festival being called the Starfall Celebration, and our domain being called the Starfall Isles, has to do with-” Edina found herself interrupted by a bout of stifled laughter. She quickly threw her gaze upon a certain Coatl, narrowing her eyes as the hatchling pretended nothing was wrong. “Moxie, would you care to explain what is so important it would be worth distracting the class from a core part of the Arcane culture?”
“No, not at all,” Moxie replied smugly, prompting a snicker from Isaye, who’d been sitting right next to them. Moxie had always been a thorn in the staff's side. They were very much a “forger of their own path,” which, for them, meant a large disregard for many of the rules in place. They were a major troublemaker, and frequently did not do well on their assignments, but they were also one of the most social students in their class, and that was how Isaye got wrangled into their circle.
Isaye, a Fathom, was Moxie’s second in command. Normally rather closed off from other dragons, she always felt much more confident with Moxie around. Despite the size difference between the Fathom and Coatl, even as hatchlings, Isaye was very much under Moxie’s wing, and she did not mind.
Edina sighed to herself, deciding, for now at least, that Moxie wouldn’t be worth the trouble, and went on with the lesson. “The reason behind the name ‘Starfall’ comes from the abundance of meteors in our area, or, as they are more colloquially called, shooting stars or falling stars.” Edina looked out at her class to ensure that she still had their attention. She spied Moxie passing a note to Isaye, so she brought her claw down on a rune stamped on her desk. The rune glowed faintly, and the note in Moxie’s claws instantly burned up and crumpled into ash, causing them to bring their claws back in shock. Edina allowed herself a pleased smile; one teacher of the adolescent students had taught her that one, and she was very glad to have it.
“Now, while many of you have likely seen at least one of them in your life already, if you look up to the ceiling, you will see a demonstration of what they look like,” Edina directed. A special part of this classroom, along with many others in the school, was a spell placed on the ceiling that allowed for anyone inside to have an unobstructed view of the starry sky above, regardless of the clouds or the time of day. The only drawback was that anything in view could only be seen with the naked eye. So, even though the day was waning, and the sky darkening, the young students had a perfect view of the stars they’d be seeing if it were night right then and there.
Oooohs, ahhhs, and gasps of awe filled the room, bringing Edina happiness as her students finally focused on the class for once. She then cast a minor spell of her own to create a few illusions to make meteors fall through the view of the sky. The young students were even more captivated by the spectacle, and Edina let the moment happen for a few seconds.
“Now, as you can probably tell, they are called shooting or falling stars because they appear to be stars
shooting across or
falling from the sky. And...” Edina attempted to continue explaining, but noticed that the young children remained too fixated on the sky above them. Reluctantly, she shut off the sky spell and tried not to react to the many pouts she heard in response. “While they may look to be stars, they are often pieces of rock or ice, sometimes metal.
“It’s so strange watching the stars fall from the sky like that,” Aurelius remarked dreamily. The Pearlcatcher had always been a daydreamer, more so than the average young Arcane dragon, and he’d often said things in strange ways.
“No, they
aren’t stars. She literally just said that,” Heinrich said tactlessly.
“Hey! You leave Aur alone, know-it-all!” Moxie spat out.
“Well, am I wrong?!” Heinrich asked bluntly.
“Both of you, muzzle it, NOW!” Edina shouted with a volume so unexpected from a Spiral that it thoroughly silenced the class. After regaining herself for a second, she continued. “Yes, the meteors are not genuine stars, they are pieces of rock, and-”
“But why did they look like stars, then?” Aurelius wondered aloud.
“Heinrich, let me explain this,” Edina quickly snapped before the Obelisk could blurt out. “Now, let me turn the sky back on. If you look up here, you’ll see…” Edina trailed off as she looked up, a veil of confusion appearing on her face. Something wasn’t right. The sky looked emptier, suddenly? But that couldn’t possibly be true. Seeing her uncertainty, the other students began studying the sky as well.
“See? There goes another one,” Aurelius pointed out. Commotion quickly grew as the students began trying to figure out what was going on and arguing with each other with their own theories.
Edina sat in silence, quickly going through her head of where the most prominent stars should have been. She realized that a few of them weren’t there in the sky, but where were they? They couldn’t just be gone. What happened? Was there something wrong with the sky spell? No, that was one spell that had proved beyond belief to work flawlessly in unison with what the sky should have looked like. So then, what could it be?
There. Edina saw it for a split second, a bit of movement. She looked at that portion of the sky, where it seemed like another star had just vanished. She watched on attentively, looking for any other signs of movement. Then another star drifted, much faster than it should have been, down from the sky and eventually out of view. More stars followed suit, as they all began migrating towards, and then below, the apparent horizon. The hatchlings began gasping and crying out, wondering what was happening. Even Heinrich didn’t seem to have an explanation for what was going on.
Eventually, every single star that used to be there in the sky had fallen, and the ceiling was now a perfect midnight black. Edina sat in pure silence, horrified at what she’d seen.
“They’re gone,” she muttered to herself, under her breath. “All of you stay here. I’m going to go talk with the other teachers to see what’s going on,” she ordered her students. She quickly darted out of the room and began asking around the halls and classrooms to the other teachers. Each of them gave her the same answer; they couldn’t see the stars either. Edina began panicking as every dragon she came across confirmed what she’d been dreading. Not too long after, a startling conclusion had to be made.
“All of them. All the stars are gone…”
