❝ I hope death is like being carried to your bedroom when you were a child and fell asleep on the couch during a family party. I hope you can hear the laughter from the next room.❞
Wisp isn't quite sure where the time's gone. It feels like just yesterday he was lying in the damp summer grass with Celeste, sweating softly in the nighttime heat as they gazed at the stars. Now September is just a breath away, and he's fated to spend the rest of eternity searching for fragments of himself on this island.
The stars twinkling above him now look the same as they always have, the same luminous spheroids that soothed him to sleep as a child and that shone down on him and Celeste on his last normal night. He imagines the grass would feel just as damp, the nighttime heat just as sticky, if he was able to still feel them.
He doesn't have much sense of time anymore, and he supposes it no longer really matters anyways, but it'll take a lot more than death and the fog that comes with it to make him forget Celeste's birthday.
He watches her now, as she watches the stars, and tries to pretend that she knows he's there with her.
"Her birthday's coming up soon."
He startles at the sudden voice coming from behind him, and turns to find Serena staring at him pensively.
"You can't just sneak up behind people like that, you know," he tells her.
She sighs. "We're dead, Wisp. Sneaking is all we can really do."
He flinches at the reminder; tries to hide it. Clocks the twinge of sadness in Serena's gaze and knows he didn't do a good job.
"Celeste's birthday," she starts again.
"I know," he sighs. "It's in 13 days."
"I heard her talking with Blathers earlier. She's not planning on celebrating."
His gaze snaps back to hers sharply. He knows it's wishful thinking to hope to find a trace of teasing in her face, as cruel as it would be if she was, but he's still disappointed to come up empty.
"Why not?"
She looks at him with pity. "You know why not."
Wisp swears his heart stops for the second time. Celeste had been excited for her birthday all year. She'd been crossing out each passing day in her calendar for months, every "X" bringing her special day closer. She'd spent hours chattering animatedly to him and Blathers about it as they exchanged fond glances behind her back, her happiness warming up even the coldest of days.
Celeste had never been too interested in her birthday before, her heart too full of her love for everyone else to ever really want to celebrate herself, but this year was different. This year, there was going to be a meteor shower on her birthday.
Celeste is no stranger to meteor showers. He'd been by her side for many of them, watching her watch the stars, trying to imprint the wonder in her gaze to memory. He used to tell her that meteor showers happen just for her, that he's certain they started the day she was born, just to see her eyes twinkle in the way that rivals even the most brightest of stars.
But this year is the first time there'll be a meteor shower
on her birthday. They had made plans to eat birthday cake—chocolate, her favourite—under the stars. He had even bought her a new telescope he had been so excited to surprise her with.
She found it when she was clearing out his apartment after... after...
(She took it home with her, not looking at it the whole way, and shoved it in the back of her closet as soon as she could.)
Wisp is broken out of his thoughts by the sound of feathers ruffling, and he turns back to Celeste in time to watch her head home.
He waits until she's disappeared from his sight before facing Serena again, who is still watching him with sad eyes.
"I can't be what ruins her birthday," he tells her.
He can't be.
Celeste's birthday arrives in a parade of gloominess and rainfall. The news had been saying today would be sunny and clear-skied for weeks, perfect meteor shower weather, only for the forecast to change abruptly last night.
Wisp spent all night willing the forecast to be wrong, begging anything who was listening for it to be a mistake. But when sunrise came and the sky remained gloomy and cloudy, the soft plopping of raindrops hitting the earth all around him, Wisp knew the kind of day he was in for.
The rain only comes down heavier as the day progresses, the soft splashes now sounding like gunshots in his ears, and when nightfall comes, there is not a single star in the sky.
(Wisp can't be what ruins Celeste's birthday. But neither can this.)
He feels the adrenaline swimming through his veins as he searches the island for his solution. He finds her by the fountain in front of Resident Services.
Serena's back is to him as he approaches, too enthralled by the fountain overflowing to pay him any mind, but he knows she knows he's there. She always does.
He doesn't waste any time with pleasantries. "I need you to change the weather."
She looks at him then, eyebrows raised. "What?"
"I need you to change the weather," he repeats. "I need it to stop raining."
"And what makes you think I can do that? I'm dead, not magical."
He scoffs. "We both know you can do anything you want except for one thing."
"I'm not magical, Wisp," she tells him again. "Anything I do comes at a cost."
"I'm willing to pay it."
"And if I'm not?"
They stare at each other for what feels like a lifetime, a lifetime neither of them got to experience, until Serena sighs warily.
"There are no stars in the sky, Wisp. The earth can sense she doesn't want them," she sighs again. "I can't do anything about that."
"
Please," he begs. "It's her birthday."
Serena looks sadder than he's ever seen her, and the sight is so
wrong that he almost wants to tell her to forget it, to spare her the weight of what he's asking. But they both know he can't. Finally-
"I can't do anything about the stars," she repeats. "But you can."
He blinks at her. "Me?"
She doesn't answer. Instead, she turns towards the fountain again, walks closer to it, and shoves her hand in. Her hand splashes around in the water for a moment, like she's blindly grabbing for something, until a golden light begins to shine from the water. It's dull and warming at first, like a fireplace on a cold winter morning, and then it morphs into a light so blinding and overwhelming, so bright that he has to turn away.
The light dims as quickly as it shone, and when Wisp's able to see again without green splotches clouding his vision, he sees the golden axe in Serena's hands.
"If I hit you with this, you'll shatter into spirit fragments. You'll float up towards the sky, and the earth will take care of the rest."
She looks at him, the remnants of gold in her gaze. "You'll be her star again for the last time."
"The last time?" he asks.
"Once you leave this form, you can't return to it," she tells him solemnly. "You will never return to this island, or to her."
"That's the cost."
It's not a question.
"That's the cost," Serena confirms.
Wisp looks up at the sky, takes in the blanket of rain clouds and pretends he can feel the coolness of raindrops hitting his face. He pictures a clear sky kissed by stars.
It feels like living.
"Will it hurt?" he asks.
"It'll feel like dying," she tells him. He laughs.
He takes a deep breath in, and looks around for the last time. He thinks of the damp summer grass and sticky humid air. He thinks of eating chocolate birthday cake with his friend as they gaze at the stars.
"Goodbye, Serena."
He pretends not to notice the tears in her eyes.
"Bye, Wisp."
She swings the axe.
Celeste leaves the house at the insistence of her brother. She had planned to spend her birthday hiding from the world, from the unopened telescope in her closet and her calendar that's stuck on the day her world flipped upside down, but Blathers seems to have finally had enough of giving her space.
"I thought it was going to rain all day," he tells her as he holds the front door open for her. "But the clouds seem to be done crying."
She warily steps outside, cringing at the wet and muddy grass beneath her feet, when twinkles of light from above catch her attention.
She looks up, and feels her breath leave her in a quick
whoosh.
The sky shines with white, yellows and blues, what feels like a million shooting stars dancing by in the night. Each one twinkles before disappearing out of sight, almost like they're trying to communicate with her.
Meteor showers happen just for you.
Celeste feels her brother wrap his wing around her. They both ignore the tears streaming down her face.
"Happy birthday, sis," Blathers whispers.
She looks at him and smiles. It doesn't quite rival the brightest of stars, at least not now, but she's hopeful it will again one day.
She looks back up at the sky, and doesn't have to pretend that Wisp is there with her.
), the event and raffle collectibles i've won during the past couple of years, finally getting my aurora egg, playing Among Us and Jackbox Games during this past tbtwc, playing New Horizons, Mario Party and Splatoon with my friends, whenever my friends see something axolotl-related and think of me, etc etc. there felt like an endless amount of treasured moments and friends i could draw, but i don't have the time 
. Your writing was also amazing.
