The sky is changing.

Kalidasa does not rely on its guidance like Qiao Xiu, and isn’t well-versed in deciphering its hidden messages like Zamani. But even he can see the emptiness where the stars have suddenly dimmed, and each night he watches, wondering what else will change.

Zamani has once brought hope with the tales of stars that would light up the sky as bright as the moon did, a glorious sight and a sign of the star’s demise. Kalidasa remembers those tales with wonder, but can no longer pretend that the shifting constellations are some far-away miracle rather than a sign of a changed, doomed world.

Kalidasa’s eyes and memory are sharp, but still each morning of change he etches the sky of the previous night into the surface of a palm leaf, the smell of charcoal paste a familiar comfort. There is another book beside the leaf-book – one with thin, near-translucent paper – a gift from Qiao Xiu. To that one, with careless strokes of a brush free from the propriety of priesthood, he tells his worries.

They are things he doesn’t dare tell Zamani when they come to ask about the night sky. They are conjectures, interpretations of dreams that don’t feel like divine provenance.

They are fears taking form, of divinity fallen and companionship in ruins.

Under the cold night sky, Kalidasa tries to be dispassionate. There are things he doesn’t know – none of them do. But there is a sky full of fallen stars, and there is a duty to the Twin Gods, and there are bonds that Kalidasa refuses to forsake, so each night, he walks up the mountain to where the the moon is brightest, and keeps watch.

Falling stars grant wishes, Remi once told him. A childish notion, a superstition from a faraway land – and still Kalidasa finds himself raising his hands in prayer.

May this, too, pass.

————

More Kalidasa (with Qiao Xiu and Zamani getting an honorary mention): The Flame of the Countless Deaths.

And some Qiao Xiu with a shadow of Kalidasa, just because: Temple Ghosts