Baby stars don’t shine for people.
They are colourless, but they shine. Just not for eyes to see.
It’s a very soft transparent glow that something only that pure and innocent could give. It is an uncorrupted light. To even look at a baby star makes you want to cup them in your palms and protect them no matter what. Like glory but fragile.
The stars love their children too. But soon they come of age, and once the babies are a century old, they are children no longer. They are initiated, they gain colour. They are no longer soft.
Every little star, before they are initiated and still pure, must visit the sea. Just once. They must know that it was the place they should stay away from.
And so, once upon a time, a baby star was taken to look at the sea. It’s mother had come with it. It was anxious about seeing a new place- it was frightened and was shivering. It was a very small baby. It felt very scared.
It did not want to go and look at the sea at all but it’s mother said that this fear was healthy. That her baby was a brave child. The small star was determined to make its mommy proud, and so it decided to go along but hesitation and fear still nipped at its mind.
It went. When it reached the sea, its fear dissipated.
The sea was as blue as the sky!
Then what difference was there between the two?
The baby star looked on, wondering about how something it was scared of could be so beautiful! There were bubbly, fluffy white pieces of foam on the tips of the waves, there were fragments of light scattered across the endless, moving blue.
The baby star was not scared anymore.
It felt happy. It really liked the sea. And it giggled when the waves tickled its feet, and it played with the small bits of water that would come onto the outcrop of land where it stood.
Its mother saw it was not afraid, and so she left her baby to it's own devices and decided to take a walk meanwhile.
The sea, it seemed, had never seen such an adorable star. The sea was amazed with it, with the fact that something so little and pure of a race known for being difficult, could be so… lovable. It was very happy with the way the baby star loved it. The sea shyly approached it with its waves, washing ashore pieces of sunken treasure for it.
The baby star told the tide that it thought the waves were very pretty. That it really, really liked the sea. The tide shone a little brighter.
While going back home, the baby star asked its mother when they were going to come back. It received the reply that they were not going to. The little star was very sad. It wanted to come back and play with the water so badly… and so it decided that in the day when its parents were asleep, it would sneak out and go to play with the water.
It did exactly that. And it kept doing it. The baby star was very happy playing with the sea.
Then one time, the sea said that it was busy in the morning. It told the baby star to come at night. And the little baby didn't mind, because its parents would be out at work, and that outcrop where it sat and played was hidden from the stars' view.
The baby waddled down to the sea at night but it was met with a sight it was not quite prepared for.
The sea was not blue! The sea was black, and it looked very deep.
What if the baby hurt itself? It did not want to fizzle out.
The sea assured it that the darkness would do nothing to the star. It was only dark because the sun was not out.
The little star understood, but there was still a small knot in its mind. The sea knew this; many are afraid of its depths, why should this small child be any different? The sea did not like the notion of that tiny little thing being afraid of it. The sea decided to take away its fears. It told the star in its language of rushing, rippling movement that it was safe. The sea would never, never harm the baby.
The baby star asked the sea to show itself to it. And the sea obliged.
"I am not dangerous," it said, "for what values are those which hurt the ones you care for?"
"I am not terrible," it continued, "for I will do everything to help something as soft as you."
"And I am not broken," it concluded, "for you fixed that part of me which was."
All this while, the waves kept rising and rising steadily over each other. They kept a small distance from the star as it stared up at them in awe. The small star could feel flecks of seawater brushing its face. It liked the very nice, shivery sensation.
The waves formed a wall, a clear barrier through which the little star saw everything. It saw the scales of cods and herrings shimmering in the moonlight, and the tiny flashes of light that were neon tetras, and big turtles with small babies like the star itself following, all black and silver and glowing in the night. It saw sharks and dolphins and eels and crabs and tiny little shrimps, and it saw big and minuscule seashells littering the sand below. It saw so many fish, so many lives inside the sea happy even in the dark- and it wasn't scared anymore.
It was amazed as it stared at the many creatures swimming around in the water. How their bodies moved, so sleek, and glistened so suddenly every time their scales caught a splinter of moonlight! The moon looked at the little star and the sea and smiled a very small, sad smile- for she knew that if not all, at least one should be exempt from the malice of the stars.
The small star wanted to touch those fish. It wanted to see if they felt as smooth and slippery and delicate as they looked. It wanted to ask the baby turtles about what games they played, and the big turtle if it could have a ride on it's back. It wanted to tell the dolphins how graceful they looked when they jumped out of the water and ask the sharks whether they could teach it to be as silent as they were. It had forgotten that it was standing at the edge of the piece of rock that jutted out. It took a step forward into the air- and it fell!
Its eyes opened wide in shock and fear and confusion and a thousand questions. It saw the waves collapse behind it.
And just as it was about to hit the sea, it landed on something softer. Water. The waves themselves. And there on the sea, the baby star's fall had been stopped. It was being cradled by the waves. They gushed and flowed around it, all the while whispering in a thousand different voices, "Oh, no, no, we cannot bear to hurt something that has loved us so dearly, no."
And the little star smiled because it knew then, that it wanted to live in the sea forever. It shone even underwater. It did not burn out like it had thought and it was happy about that because it knew that the sea would keep it safe.
That night,
A star went missing from the sky,
The sea was a small bit calmer,
And the moon shone a little bit brighter.
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