Author's note: So I started this a couple months ago for FE Contest's "Starry, Starry Night" theme. Never finished anything in time, eventually just ditched the WIP. I looked this over the other night, though, and the rest just kind of came to me.

It was pretty awkward to write Saleh as, well, Saleh, and not just a generic wise magic person (like every other mage guy I write, aha.) But I think I did all right.

Anyway, I'll stop talking now. All feedback is loved.

Stars Over Caer Pelyn

Eirika, do you see that bright star in the south? The brightest one in the sky, you see?

Eirika could still see it in the skies above Caer Pelyn. She found it from behind the withered branches of the old oak tree, still just as bright as she remembered it from the balcony of Grado Keep.

From there, trace down, just like this – one, two, three, four – that's the axe of the warrior Grado. Can you see it?

Eirika couldn't see a sword, or a warrior, or really anything at all in the jumble of lights above. She never had been able to, but she would always smile and try to point out the pattern of the stars with her finger, to wonder at the picture she could only imagine.

Usually a nod and a vague gesture, dishonest though it was, was enough for Lyon. He'd smile back and keep going, explaining the history of the astronomer who first charted the sword's path in the sky. The lessons were usually too dull for Ephraim – he'd tune out after Lyon mentioned, ever so apologetic, that Renais' twin heroes, always counted as one, were represented only by a chain of stars that made the blade of a sword, and not a spear as Ephraim had so dearly hoped. And so it was nearly always Eirika and Lyon, alone in the night, with only the lights above to keep them company.

It was strange to look at the sky alone, with no one there to remind her which constellation was which. She almost expected to hear her brother grumble are you finished yet? behind her, in that gruff way he always had when he was bored, or for Lyon to reach for her hand, just for a moment, before pulling away, sharply, as if her touch might burn his fair skin.

Of course, that wouldn't happen. Ephraim wanted no part of Caer Pelyn and all its ancient mysteries, and Lyon would never see the stars again.

It was better not to think of such things, Eirika knew. She focused instead on finding the curve of Freya's' bow, the one Innes had pointed out to her one night, by the northern coast of Carcino.

"That star," he'd said, pointing one long, gloved finger at the tip of the topmost limb (or at least, that was what Eirika had assumed it was, from the arc he'd traced before), "will always take you north. Remember that." He'd smelled of smoke and sandalwood and the cold Carcinese sea when he said it, and when Eirika thought of north, she was almost sure she caught a trace of it, of him, in the air.

She realized, late, entranced by the stars, that there were footsteps behind her, simple leather boots in the grass by her side. Much quieter than Ewan could ever hope to be, and slower than any of the retinue who had accompanied her from Renais.

"Can you see the stars the same way in Renvall, Princess Eirika? My apologies; I. . .can't quite remember."

It took Eirika a moment to realize Saleh had said her name, and another to realize he was actually speaking to her. Stars, over Renvall. She tried to remember the times in her youth when she had stared out the window, making her own pictures in the sky, so unlike the ones Lyon and Innes tried to show her, but somehow crisper, clearer. The image wouldn't come to her. All she could call to mind was the smell of the night air tinged with metal and blood, Seth's rough hands on her arms, the shortest glimpse of pure white on black above before she heard We cannot waste time here, Princess –

"No," she answered honestly. "Not like this."

Saleh eased himself down next to her with only a slight wince. She still remembered the injuries he'd taken next to her – the arrow in leg when he'd rushed to Myrrh's defense, the long gash just a finger's width away from his eye from his brush with a swordsman, the deep, near-black bruises on his arm from the butt of a lance. She had her own scars, too many to count – but his, like the thick red at Seth's shoulder, the new scars on Innes' face, the grime mixed with blood, maybe his, maybe not, that seemed to always stain her brother's clothes, tended to linger longer in her daydreams. She tried, as always, not to think of Lyon and wounds at the same time.

"You seem troubled, Princess. Is there something on your mind?"

"Ah, no. Please, don't worry."

She expected to hear him ask if she'd practiced Valega, or to remind her, in that tone he always used with Ewan, that lies were unbecoming. Instead, she watched him lift his hand and gesture up to the impossible clearness of Caer Pelyn's sky.

"Princess," he ventured, his voice soft, almost shy, "you know the names of the constellations, do you not?"

Eirika hesitated, her fists clenching tight in the folds of her cloak, her teeth biting hard on the inside of her mouth. "Tell me about them," she said finally. "Please."

She wanted to hear, just once more, about the string of Freya's bow, the shape of Grado's great axe, the hilt of the sword named for Sieglinde herself, the very one she tried not to remember using. She wanted to hear which star would lead her north, which one was the brightest, which one the researchers thought might be the biggest.

Again, Saleh surprised her. He swept his hand in a smooth motion, from the star Innes said would always lead her north to one at the tip of Garm's blade. "The wing of the Great Dragon," he said, with a reverence she'd never heard from him before. "Not Lady Myrrh, or," he winced, "Lord Morva. No, long before both of them, the very first. That one is . . . sacred, really. I cannot say all the reasons why, now, but. . . here." He moved his hand downward, to a clearing in the branches, and made a trail toward the southern regions of the sky. "That's our mountain, this very one. Well, its mirror in the sky, in a way, and you see –"

And he told her of the snowcaps made by the clusters of bright white, of the face of the old bear, like the ones who lingered sometimes by the fresh mountain streams, and the path of the hunter who followed always, but never caught up. He seemed not to notice how strange it all sounded, too caught up in the way he described all the stars rotating around that star to the north, and somehow, without explanations, it entranced Eirika all the more.

When finally he paused, Eirika almost asked him to continue. There had to be more of those shapes she still couldn't make out, familiar and yet foreign in the way he described them, with that same exhilaration she tried to recall from the first time Lyon had shown her his own. Before she could speak, Saleh reached for her hand and lifted it, gently, with his own, now with no hesitation or caution in his voice.

"This one is important," he said, as his oddly rough fingers twined together with hers. He found that same star in the north and moved up, ever up, in the slightest of curves, around the wing of the dragon, or Freya's bow, or both, and out to the very edge of their vision. "The dragon-tooth blade of Nada Kuya."

Eirika followed the way it crossed the horizon, cutting the skyline nearly in two. There was an elegance to it, a simplicity, an element unlike even the rough frameworks of animals he'd shown her before. For once, she could see the shape of a sword, rather than a mess of white pinpricks scattered above.

Slowly, almost reluctantly, Saleh released her hand, and she turned back to see the way the soft, distant starlight cast shadows on his face. "When you return to Renais, remember that one, at least." The caution returned in his still-quiet voice as he added, "It is my favorite."

Eirika faced the horizon again, and thought not of cold oceans, or horrors, or blood. She thought only of crisp mountain air, of great mountains, of warm fingers twisted tight against her own.

"I will," she said firmly, and she caught Saleh smile from the corner of her eye. "I promise, I will."