I set out for a walk under the gaze of the moon, knowing what had happened, knowing that it wasn’t alright. I could hear it, then, as the stars repeated it under their breath:
It is not alright.
It is not alright.
It is not alright.
The moon picked up a repetition of that same phrase, and accosted me; it screamed at me, and it silvered me with its reflected light, and I was made to feel uncomfortable in the darkness.
It is not alright.
It is not alright.
The stars grew harsher in their light, the pricks of brightness bearing down on me with points and severing edges. I couldn’t escape what they told me to remember. Where once my head would have been limpid, and the purity of their light would have clarified what was and wasn’t true, was and wasn’t valid, was and wasn’t right, now there were only a seat made of starlight, a throne that I had gained - one to serve as a reminder of what I had given up for it. The starfire of its arms and seat were sharpened, shaped into blades meant to cut should I relax, finding comfort.
I was no longer welcome among the patrons of the night, it seemed.
As I paced beneath the glare of stars, it weighed on me, and I struggled to bear it. What I had done surged, and it roiled, and it wanted out; what I had done wanted more than just the night sky to know. If beat at me, and it made me suffer. I was collapsing under it, but I couldn’t share what had happened; I had thought the stars and the moon to be a confidant, but I was wrong. So I carried it with me - everything that had transpired, all the boldness and consequence of it. The stars did not cease mentioning it.
It is not alright.
It is not alright.
It is not alright.
A crack.
Not one appearing in the unbreaking black of the night that was only penetrated by the all-knowing and forever stars, but the sort that you hear, and that breaks through you. Then, searing, cleansing light.
A storm. A thunderhead had developed over my head, and out of it speared lightning.
The bolts were savage, yet entrancing. Jagged screams of amethyst and diamond among the accusatory obsidian of everything above me, shining in brightest purple and the most brilliant and clean white. They were akin to flashes within a gemstone, with their grace and forcefulness, in that they were sudden and beautiful.
I was assisted by the lightning. It flashed across the night sky, its light battling that from the stars and moon that had taken permanent residence long before it had appeared; The lightning was no doubt an interloper, yet it was ferocious. It fought against the moon and the many stars, specks of light and their commander who never failed to prevail, and in its intensity, everything was lost to me; I could no longer feel that silvered oppression.
Where the stars chanted at me, forcing me to recall all that I had done wrong, the lightning sang as though I was honorable. I knew, as I watched, that it fought for me; it shot across the sky, through the clouds, insisting to the stars that I had made no mistakes. It told them of my value, of my endurance, of what I was capable. And, as the lightning cleaved their domain, breaking the sky into lavender, silver, and royally-colored parts, I saw this, which may have been illusory: those soldiers of night, retreating, shaken; the stars were made fearful.
I returned to my home to the accompaniment of thunder rumbling across the world, announcing to everything the fight that had occurred. The lighting remained above me and around me, in pronounced columns that intersected and were had an inherent brilliance - ones which made me feel as though it offered support, and was a friend. It flew overhead, and announced to all things what walked beneath it. Around me, the lightning formed a throne room, and in it, I was a ruler.
The stars never again bothered me. The moon forgot me, but I was not concerned. And that thing, which was not alright, was never again mentioned. I never thought of it again, and was never again made weary and frightened as it had made me.
I only comprehended later that the lightning was a part of me. That those spears and javelins used in that penultimate battle, sterling and yet dangerous, were mine to possess, and to wield. I never again questioned that I was irrefutably powerful.